On 22 September, in Skopje, a group of officials, journalists, media watchdogs and international partners gathered to talk about one of the most unsettling realities of modern elections: the fact that a false claim can travel around the world before the truth has even laced up its shoes. The event, titled “From Evidence to Action: Strengthening Resilience to Election-related FIMI in North Macedonia,” was organized around a new draft document developed by the Metamorphosis Foundation together with International IDEA. It is called the Draft Policy and Accountability Roadmap, and its first recommendation is deliberately simple: before the next elections, every institution involved in the electoral process should designate a specific person whom journalists can contact when a false claim about the vote starts circulating. The idea is not to create a new bureaucracy or a new layer of officialdom. It is to make sure that when the digital noise becomes unbearable, there is at least one known voice, one named human being, on the other end of the line who can confirm or deny, explain or correct. The broader goal is to build a culture of accountability around the information space, so that no one can claim ignorance when a lie spreads and no journalist has to rely on random statements or lucky timing. The meeting served as a discussion platform for media outlets, authorities, civil society and international partners, and the conversation centered on practical countermeasures against election-related foreign information manipulation and interference, or FIMI, as well as the more familiar problem of disinformation. What made the discussion especially valuable was the recognition that the problem is not abstract. It is already here, and it is affecting the way citizens see politics, media and each other.
Canadian Ambassador Michelle Cameron opened the dialogue with a warning that set the tone for the entire afternoon: no democratic society is immune to foreign information manipulation, and no country, no matter how large or small, can confront it in isolation. She spoke about Canada’s own experience and recent legislative steps, but she was careful not to suggest that governments can solve this problem on their own. Institutions, she said, cannot bear the task alone. Civil society organizations and the media share the responsibility. Perhaps her most important point was about public trust. She argued that communication with citizens must be precise and steady, because if people begin to conclude that nothing can be trusted, then the ground is already lost. Elections, she reminded the room, depend on public confidence. If people do not believe the results are fair, then the technical legality of the vote matters little. That theme of trust ran through the event from start to finish. Alberto Fernández Gibaja, Head of Programme for Digitalization and Democracy at International IDEA, added a broader perspective. He noted that everyone confronting FIMI shares the same fundamental objective: strengthening democracy, not merely defending against manipulation. He also stressed that the resilience being built in North Macedonia has implications far beyond the country itself. What is learned here, what mistakes are avoided and what systems are proved to work, can help other countries facing similar information warfare. International IDEA, he reminded the audience, has supported the Metamorphosis Foundation’s work on FIMI for years. Their partnership produced the report “Enablers and Incentives of Election-Related Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference in North Macedonia,” and now the Roadmap itself. The point was not simply to applaud progress, but to show that the Roadmap is built on evidence, not guesswork, and that it reflects years of observation, monitoring and difficult conversations.
When Goran Rizaov of the Metamorphosis Foundation presented the Roadmap in detail, he made clear that its recommendations fall into two categories: measures that can be implemented immediately, and measures that depend on legislative changes or a broader political dialogue. The immediate steps are practical and concrete. Each institution involved in elections would appoint a contact person with a clear duty to respond to election-related incidents. The institutions would also agree on a protocol that answers some of the most difficult questions in real time: who verifies a suspicious claim? Who determines whether it is a cyber incident or a possible electoral offence? Who addresses the public, and at what point? Who is responsible for preserving evidence? These may sound like technical details, but in the chaos of a fast-moving disinformation campaign, the absence of clear answers can be fatal. Without a protocol, institutions often spend hours arguing internally while a false narrative spreads externally. The Roadmap also proposes a formal review after every election, looking at what incidents occurred, how quickly institutions responded, and how social media platforms behaved. It asks for platform accountability to be made realistic, with named contacts and open data about who is financing political advertising. The longer-term measures are equally important. They include resuming the stalled amendments to the Electoral Code, so that online campaigning and political advertising expenditure are properly regulated, and merging the advertising register of the media regulator with that of the State Election Commission. Such changes would not solve everything overnight, but they would create a framework in which manipulation is harder, more visible and more costly. The Roadmap is also honest about the context. North Macedonia is marked by deep political, ideological and ethnic divisions. Its media market is fragile, public trust in institutions is low, and a large share of political communication now happens online, often outside the reach of traditional oversight. The scale of the problem became clearer during monitoring by Metamorphosis of the 2025 elections: the largest political pages, mostly associated with party leaders rather than candidates, spent more than 150,000 euros on Meta platforms alone. That kind of money can shape a media environment, especially in a country where newsrooms are struggling to survive.
The first panel of the event, moderated by Zoran Richliev of Metamorphosis, turned to media resilience, and it quickly became clear that the biggest vulnerabilities in the information space are economic as much as political. Biljana Nasteska Kalanoska of the Association of Journalists raised a question that is often uncomfortable to discuss openly: how is money distributed in the media sector, and how does that distribution influence editorial policy? She argued that paid political advertising, especially when it arrives in large amounts during election periods, endangers the independence of outlets. It is difficult to investigate and criticize a political party that is keeping your newsroom alive. She also emphasized the importance of professional standards and the need for swift verification of news, especially in an environment where speed is rewarded and errors are rarely corrected with the same energy. Pero Momirovski of the Independent Trade Union of Journalists and Media Workers went even further. He noted that many outlets in the country depend for their survival on paid political advertising during elections. This creates a perverse incentive system: funding is not awarded on the basis of quality, accuracy, or public value, but rather on the perceived loyalty or usefulness of the outlet. That is not a recipe for independent journalism. Biljana Georgievska of the Council of Media Ethics focused on the issue of transparency in sponsored content. She stated that sponsored content must be clearly labelled, and acknowledged that this frequently does not happen during campaigns. She also pointed to the journalists’ code, which has been updated to address the rise of social media influencers and the use of artificial intelligence. In her view, balance in election reporting must be genuine, not a superficial attempt to appear fair while quietly favoring one side. Zorana Gadzovska-Spasovska, editor-in-chief of Kolegium.mk, added another layer. In her experience, economic independence is just as significant as political pressure. Newsrooms lack the staff and the time to verify every claim that crosses their desks, while parties and institutions maintain entire teams whose job is to produce and disseminate content rapidly. These political machines often address one another rather than the public, creating a closed loop of noise that leaves ordinary citizens confused and exhausted. The panel also touched on the precarious situation of many media professionals in the country, many of whom work without security or fair pay, and on the upcoming initiative for a media pluralism fund, which could offer some relief to outlets that want to do independent work but struggle to stay afloat.
The second panel, moderated by Alisa Schaible of International IDEA, shifted the focus to institutional preparedness against FIMI. Bojan Maricic, President of the State Election Commission, made a striking observation: elections no longer take place only at polling stations, but also in the digital space where citizens form their opinions. That means protection against FIMI must cover the information environment as well as the ballot box. He was clear, however, that cybersecurity and anti-FIMI measures must respect freedom of expression. The goal is not to silence critics or control debate, but to protect the integrity of the electoral process. Maricic described the Roadmap as an excellent document for institutions that already have a platform for dialogue, and he acknowledged that institutional cooperation on countering disinformation in North Macedonia is still at a very early stage. He called it a priority topic and pointed to Sweden, which maintains a Psychological Defence Agency and has seen FIMI decline between electoral cycles. That example offered hope that the problem is not permanent and that serious, sustained institutional attention can make a difference. Aleksandar Osmanli of the Ministry of Digital Transformation highlighted North Macedonia’s efforts to align its digital regulatory framework with that of the European Union, particularly through the implementation of the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. He also described a notable initiative to strengthen digital and media skills among civil servants, which aims to train so-called “digital ambassadors” within each ministry. These ambassadors would act as multipliers, spreading awareness and good practices throughout the state administration. It is a small but meaningful way to build resilience from the inside. Sasho Bogdanovski of the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services said that defending democracy begins with protecting the information space, and that media outlets are the ones carrying the information on which credible elections rely. He stressed the importance of contacts, not just from authorities to the media, but also from authorities to platforms, and referred to the standing coordination mechanism that the Agency coordinates. That mechanism is a platform where different institutions can share information and respond more coherently to threats. Ambassador Cameron returned to offer a comparative perspective. Canada has taken legislative steps to counter FIMI, including the establishment of the Office of the National Counter Foreign Interference Coordinator. She described the issue as a whole-of-society effort to protect democratic cohesion and information integrity. At the same time, she acknowledged that every country and every context must find the solution that works best for it. There is no single model, but international cooperation among like-minded partners remains essential, because the threats cross borders and so must the responses.
By the end of the afternoon, the discussions had produced a lively, at times difficult, exchange across all the issues raised in the Roadmap. There was no illusion that the problems are easy to solve, or that a single document can change the deeper political and economic conditions that make disinformation so effective. But there was also a sense that something important had been accomplished. The conversations were honest, the recommendations were concrete, and the commitment to continue working together was visible. The discussions will help strengthen the evidence and recommendations contained in the Roadmap, and as a next step, the finalized version will be shared with institutions and carried forward by the Metamorphosis Foundation. There is also a plan for a regional convening of authorities from the Western Balkans, to be held in Montenegro in December 2026, where North Macedonia’s approach will be featured. That is perhaps the most meaningful sign of progress: a country that has often been at the receiving end of foreign interference is now in a position to offer lessons to its neighbors. The work is far from finished, and the next election will be the real test of whether the Roadmap lives up to its promise. But for the first time in a long while, the institutions, journalists, civil society groups and international partners in that room were not just talking about the problem. They were talking about the practical, sometimes unglamorous, mechanisms that can solve it: a contact person, a verification protocol, a review after the votes are counted, a law that makes online advertising transparent. In the end, that is what resilience looks like. It is not a dramatic victory over all lies, but a quiet, persistent ability to respond, to correct, and to keep the public from drowning in a sea of ambiguity.