Krakow, 28/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - Although freedom of the press is constantly under threat on the fringes of the EU, with Belarus being the most visible and obvious illustration of this case in point, increasing political and financial pressure on journalists within EU member states themselves also underlines the fact that media independence and plurality are not concessions that have been written into stone but values that have to be vigorously defended and protected. This could in effect summarise the conclusion of the annual conference (the fourth of its kind), entitled Freedom of media in the EU and the neighbouring countries. This was organised in Krakow (Poland) by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), with the support of the European Commission and the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU on Thursday 24 and Friday 25 November.
In her opening speech at the conference, the EESC vice-president, Anna Maria Darmanin, explained the approach that would largely be adopted in the debates: examination of press freedom should partly focus on southern countries, in an effort to understand the role played by social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, in the Arab Spring revolutions and the inherent consequences resulting from these new technologies on information access and broadcasting. Debates should also be directed towards countries in the East, in order to understand how the EU should respond if it is to help promote the expansion of civil society through greater press freedom in Eastern Partnership states. This focus should mean that we “also have a look at what is happening within the EU itself”, explained the vice president because, as underlined by the French journalist and secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, Jean-François Julliard, “freedom of the press is threatened in a lot of EU or candidate accession countries”.
In what way is freedom of the press under threat today? Two countries that are most often referred to in order to illustrate the fundamental aspects of such a threat are Hungary and Italy. In the former, the draft law proposed by the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban in December 2010 sought to regulate the way in which newspaper news coverage was regulated and also included fines in the event that the public or moral interest had been infringed. Although the draft law was not clearly defined, it revealed the danger of the political power's determination to control the distribution of information. In the latter, “which is a good example of concentration of media ownership versus media pluralism”, it reflects the danger to journalistic impartiality when faced with media conglomerates, explained Darmanin. This is an allusion to the domination exerted by the media empire of the former head of the Italian government, Silvio Berlusconi.
Illustrating these two categories of control exerted on media freedom, Julliard illustrated the alarming results from the most recent Reporters Without Borders' survey into press freedom in EU member states in 2010. This would suggest that “we get the impression that the EU is currently losing its status as an exemplary case of freedom of expression and human rights… because to be a journalist in Europe is no longer a peaceful or easy situation” given the adoption of repressive laws (the French law on journalistic sources was referred to in this connection) and political and economic pressure, sometimes including physical violence used against journalists (different incidents in Turkey, Belarus and Ukraine but also in Greece, which is part of the EU). The EU included questions on freedom of the press in its negotiations with states seeking to join the Community, pointed out Sixtine Bouygues, the director of DG Communication at the Commission, but the situation within the EU itself is full of contrasts emphasised Julliard. The disparities between states such as Finland, the Netherlands and Iceland, which are described as good examples and countries like Italy, France, Greece and Bulgaria, where working as a journalist has become much harder over the past 10 or so years, are continuing to deepen. In an effort to rectify this trend, the Commission is about to set up an independent committee on media freedom and pluralism within the EU. This committee will be presided over by former Latvian president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga. Bouygues stressed that this committee “will promote respect for media pluralism and freedom across the EU. It will do so by analysing limitations to media freedom, arising from factors like commercial interference or concentrated private ownership.”
In the context of the EU's approach towards Eastern Partnership countries, the spokesperson for the Polish Presidency, Konrad Niklewicz, expressed the wish to see the Council of the EU taking new “direct and indirect” initiatives in the future to support independent media, as a complement to current projects such as support for civil society through the Civil Society Forum for the Eastern Partnership. He explained that it is through financial subsidies that assistance to the media will be most effective. This point of view was shared by Julliard and Agnieszka Romaszewka-Guzy, the editor-in-chief for the Belsat television channel broadcast in Belarus, who also underlined the importance of continued political pressure on states in order to protect journalists, and the independence of the work they undertake, as an essential pillar of all democratic systems. (JK/transl.fl)