Germany and Italy on Friday backed an organization dedicated to fighting hybrid threats and disinformation, weeks after the United States exited it and called it “wasteful.”

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has hammered Europe with hybrid attacks ranging from cyberattacks, destruction of property and transport links, disinformation, drone incursions and even attempted assassinations. Analysts argue the aim of the hybrid campaign is to reduce European support for Ukraine. 

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz met in Rome to adopt a “plan of action for strategic bilateral and EU cooperation.” In the joint plan, the two countries committed to “strengthening” the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats.

The center was one of dozens of organizations from which U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew in early January on the grounds that they were “wasteful, ineffective, and harmful.”

Meloni and Merz committed to “exchange on hybrid threats, information resilience and strategic communications,” as well as prioritizing a wide range of cybersecurity policies such as the protection of critical infrastructure, cyber capacity building projects and tackling cybercrime. They also said they will “prioritize disruptive and dual-use technologies” for cyber defense.

The two European leaders also pushed to boost the EU’s intelligence-sharing capacities, in particular the “hybrid fusion cell” within the EU Intelligence and Situation Centre (EU INTCEN).