Security, including cyber security, is at the heart of today’s challenges facing the European Union. The member of the ALDE Group in the Committee of the Regions (ALDE-CoR) Dainis Turlais, who recently wrote the report "Proposal for a European Defence Fund" in which he supports a European Defence from the bottom up, invited a group of fellow ALDE-CoR members to Riga to witness first hand how cyber security can put many Member States at risk – including his country of Latvia – and how some countries such as Russia already use it as a weapon of mass disruption.

ALDE-CoR President Bart Somers commented: "Local and regional politicians need to raise awareness at citizen level of the cyber security threat to our democracy and society. We need to empower people so they can better understand and identify credible information. Moreover, we need a narrative that defends an open society and democracy. Cities and regions need to work with national governments to prepare their defence against future cyber attacks.”

The seminar included a study visit to the National Armed Forces Military Base in Ādaži, a NATO military base, where the participants had a tour of the facilities and spoke to several members of the NATO-mission there, consisting of Spanish, Slovakian, Albanian, Italian and Canadian troops.

Find out more on the ALDE-CoR's website.