Twenty-seven current American Fulbrighters and twenty-five European alumni of EU-funded exchange programs came to Brussels for the 2019 EU-US Young Leaders Seminar on Shared Transatlantic Challenges: Disinformation & the Changing Media Landscape. Over the course of 2,5 days, this diverse group of participants tackled questions of disinformation, media literacy, and transatlantic cooperation through a carefully curated mixture of large-group presentations panel discussions and small-group, free-form breakout sessions. Three aspects of disinformation and media literacy were addressed by expert panels representing the private sector (including speakers from Facebook, Google, and Mozilla), the public sector (including representatives from EEAS, European Commission DG-CONNECT, and USDOS Brussels Media Hub), and civil society (including representatives from academic and NGOs). Additional speakers included Mark Libby, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to the European Union, and Christian Lefflner, Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service. Participants were welcomed by Dr. Hilde Hardeman, Head of the European Commission’s Service for Foreign Policy Instruments, and Amb. Gordon S. Sondland, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, during a reception held in honor of the seminar on Monday evening.

Fulbright Greece was represented by Stavros Malkidis, Fulbright Alumnus of the Student Leaders from Europe Program, and Shane Kleier, current U.S. Fulbright English Teaching Fellow - HAEF.