A Center for Strategic Communication and Disinformation Countering will be set up in Moldova. The relevant bill proposed by President Maia Sandu was given a first reading by Parliament, IPN reports.

Virgiliu Pâslariuc, deputy head of the Parliament’s commission on culture, education, research, youth and the media, said that the mission of the Center for Strategic Communication and Disinformation Countering will be to strengthen cooperation between institutions in the fight against disinformation, manipulation of information and foreign interference, which pose a threat or can affect national security and the national interests. The institution will implement measures to ensure the security of the information space and to build the society’s resilience to threats.

The Center will be led by a director who will be named by Parliament at the suggestion of the President for a five-year term. The candidate will be chosen at a public contest staged by the President.

The director will be assisted by a deputy named at the proposal of the Center’s director. The institution will have a Board consisting of 11 members named by the public authorities and civil society, which will assess the work done by the Center.

The bill is to be given a final reading.

In Thursday’s sitting of Parliament, the MPs of the Bloc of Communists and Socialists asked that this bill should be excluded from the agenda, but the parliamentary majority rejected the proposal. As this and other proposals weren’t supported, the BCS MPs announced that they will not take part in Thursday’s and Friday’s sittings of Parliament in protest. The independent MPs who formed part of the outlawed Shor Party also didn’t attend the sitting.