EU drops sponsorship of disinformation conference at Trump officials’ request

The Trump administration pressured multiple countries to withdraw their sponsorship of a leading European conference on disinformation, with Canada, Lithuania and the EU’s diplomatic service subsequently agreeing to do so, the Guardian understands.

The conference, #Disinfo2026, taking place Wednesday and Thursday, is the annual meetup of Europe’s counter-disinformation community and has drawn hundreds of researchers, journalists, technologists and policymakers to a hotel in Vilnius, Lithuania. It is run by an independent Brussels non-profit, EU Disinfo Lab.

A #Disinfo2026 flyer shows portions blocked out. Photograph: Obtained by The Guardian

Three persons familiar with the matter, including European officials, confirmed that the US state department had been in touch with multiple governments over their support for the conference.

Internal state department documents seen by the Guardian also show US officials thanking Lithuania for “taking US concerns seriously”. The document says Washington was “grateful” Lithuania supposedly found a panel framing the US as a foreign information threat “reprehensible and surprising” and welcomed its decision to limit involvement in the conference.

That panel – called “USA as a FIMI threat: adapt, acknowledge, push back”, with the acronym FIMI referring to “foreign information manipulation and interference” – took place Wednesday. It explored how Europe’s disinformation community could rebuild resilience without Washington, and is the first time the conference appears to have entertained the idea that the US could be a disinformation actor in Europe. Sources and the internal document indicate the state department was explicitly focused on this panel, which included three American speakers, among them a former CIA officer.

According to one person familiar with the deliberations, other communications appeared to originate from the office of Sarah B Rogers, the US undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.

Nina Jankowicz, a former US official and disinformation expert who in 2022 briefly headed the Biden administration’s Disinformation Governance Board, which Republicans assailed as a vehicle for policing Americans’ speech, said she understood that Washington had pressured Lithuania and Canada to withdraw from the conference. The Guardian understood from French officials that France was contacted as well.

“What this amounts to is a purported defender of free speech at the state department using the enormous power of the US government to try to pressure Americans from criticizing their government,” said Jankowicz.

In statements, Lithuania, Canada and the EU said the program of the conference did not align with their official views on the US role in disinformation – although that program had been in place for months before they withdrew their support, since June.

“Lithuania has cancelled its participation in ‘Disinfo 2026’ as several parts of the conference programme differ from the official position of the Government,” Lithuania’s foreign ministry wrote in a statement.

Global Affairs Canada “carefully assesses participation in, and sponsorship of, external events on a case-by-case basis,” GAC spokesperson Samantha Lafleur said. “Following changes to the framing of several panel discussions, GAC decided to revise its participation in those sessions at the EU DisinfoLab 2026 conference.”

Canadian officials are still participating in the conference, Lafleur added.

An EU spokesperson confirmed that the European External Action Service had decided to withdraw its support from the conference because “the organisers chose to frame some of the discussions in a way which does not align with the official positions held by the EU.”

EU officials, the Guardian understands, did not agree with the characterisation of the US as a disinformation actor.

Despite withdrawing its branding as an official supporter, the EU continues to fund the conference.

In its latest report on foreign information manipulation and interference threats, published in March, the EU’s diplomatic service named Russia and China as “threat actors” without any negative reference to the US.

A diplomatic source at France’s foreign ministry said “there’s absolutely no reason for us to change our commitments” when it came to supporting the conference.

“We stick to supporting civil society. It’s not just principled, it’s operational,” she said, adding that the conference was a “laboratory” that helped Europe develop key policy around disinformation.

The US state department has taken an increasingly interventionist posture towards free speech and civil society in Europe over the past year. The Guardian has revealed that the state department is awarding millions of dollars in non-competitive grants to organisations across the continent supportive of Trump’s agenda.

Lithuania’s withdrawal comes just after the prime minister, Mindaugas Sinkevicius, said Lithuania would pay for a permanent US military base if the US agreed, a day after Trump said he would consider the request. Sinkevicius called a lasting American presence a critical guarantee of deterrence against Russia.

“They are great people, so we will certainly look at it,” the US president said on Monday.

Sinkevicius said he first proposed the idea in a meeting with Trump’s envoy John Coale, and called it a “critically important guarantee of deterrence and security.” Lithuania, a member of the EU and Nato, borders Russia and its close ally Belarus.

The US has kept a rotating armoured battalion of almost 1,000 troops in the country since 2019, the US Army has noted.