For the first time in DBJW history, Youth Ambassadors from Clusters A, B, C, and D had the opportunity to present their policy papers directly to Members of Parliament in the national parliaments of their targeted countries following the annual German-Baltic Conference, held in Vilnius in October 2024. On November 7th, 2024, Cluster C, which focused on AI and Disinformation, shared its recommendations at the German Parliament in Berlin. In this blog post, Young Journalist, Gleb Konkin-von Serebrowski, reflects on the first of the four parliamentary hearings.
Date: 07.11.2024
Location: Berlin, German Parliament
As a young journalist, I was originally assigned to the Cluster C group, whose task was to present a paper on AI and disinformation to the German parliament. As a journalist, my role was to satellite the international youth group and their work, which focused on the issue of AI involvement in disinformation, to produce a paper and document to be presented to the German parliament.
The morning in Berlin was cold, with a grey sky over the city. I arrived early and had a coffee in a workers' bakery near the government district. When my group arrived, we all went into the government building. After 15 minutes of strict control at the entrance, we reached our conference room. The presence of the German anti-European AFD party was a little disconcerting - since they are now a present power in Germany and are represented in parliament, everyone is forced to deal with them in one way or another.
While sitting in the room, the group had the opportunity to present their issue to some members of the German parliament. And to quote Thomas von Lüpke, the chairman of the German-Baltic Future Foundation, "the last 24 hours have been quite historic. Trump has been re-elected. Probably with a majority in both houses of Congress. We have to expect shaking developments. The US remains our most important ally outside Europe". He adds: "Lindner is fired. Elections in Germany are likely to be held six months earlier than previously planned. Let us try to make our meetings tomorrow happen anyway. It is very unlikely that they will uninvite us just eight hours before the meeting. So you can visit the Bundestag at a historic moment".
And indeed it was. The cold, grey November day was a fitting backdrop for the day. The day after the widely announced crisis that the German government was facing, it was quite a surprise. Of course, most of the parliamentarians were busy with current events, but the German-Baltic Future Foundation group was granted the presence and time of the German Bundestag.
In the evening, the Estonian Embassy in Berlin hosted an evening dedicated to the 35th anniversary of the Baltic Way (Lithuanian: Baltijos kelias; Latvian: Baltijas ceļš; Estonian: Balti kett) or Baltic Chain (or "Chain of Freedom"), a peaceful political demonstration that took place on 23 August 1989. Approximately two million people joined hands to form a human chain stretching 690 kilometres across the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which were occupied and annexed by the USSR at the time. During the discussions and talks about these events, several important points were raised - such as the fact that the Baltic Way took place 2(!) months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and that the emotional support of the wave of protest in the Baltic States, as well as in Hungary, was crucial at the time.
