The Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Values and Transparency, Vera Jourova, took part, on Wednesday 10 March, in the European Parliament’s debate on the repeated attempts by the Polish, Hungarian (see EUROPE 12658/18), and Slovenian (see EUROPE 12672/6) governments to “muzzle free media”.
Faced with a clearly concerned assembly, Ms Jourova stressed the need to provide the Commission with more resources.
Recalling that the Commission’s competences remain “very limited” regarding the media, she said it would be useful “to identify how to broaden and strengthen the Commission’s toolbox, from financial support to regulation and enforcement measures”.
The Vice-President, however, did not go into further detail and simply concluded by referring to a “need for tools that recognise the media as key players in society”.
“For the moment, we only have rules that recognise the role of the media as players in the European single market. And this is what is limiting our ability to act”, she added.
Several MEPs welcomed these comments. Slovak MEP Michal Šimečka (Renew Europe), in particular, welcomed this and felt that Parliament could support the Commission in this respect.
“The EU’s response has so far been inadequate. There is no condemnation from the other Member States, the Commission has taken few concrete measures, and this must change”, he noted.
Possible solutions?
Sven Simon (EPP, Germany) also thought the idea was a good one. He himself put forward a proposal: to allow European journalists to take their cases to the Court of Justice of the EU, “to make fundamental rights individually enforceable before the Court in Luxembourg”.
In support of his argument, Mr Simon also stated that the so-called Article 7 proceedings against Poland and Hungary had, in his view, proved to be unsuitable.
The president of the parliamentary commission on civil liberties, Juan Fernando López Aguilar, on the contrary, regretted that these procedures have simply not yet been concluded.
“This Parliament has used Article 7 to denounce the violation of fundamental rights in Hungary and Poland, the Council has not taken the decision, and here we are once again debating the violation of press rights in Hungary, Poland and Slovenia”, he hammered, accusing Member States of delaying the decision for fear of the cost.
Europe-wide threat
Linda Ravo, a member of the human rights organisation Civil Liberties Union for Europe, also called on the EU to “tackle those who intimidate and silence the press head on by taking these countries to court and imposing sanctions on them”.
On the eve of this debate, the Civil Liberties Union for Europe published a report on democratic trends in the EU, addressing the issue of the press and the conditions under which journalists work.
The report confirms that political pressure on the media has increased or remains at worrying levels in all three countries involved in the debate, and also in the Czech Republic.
“Journalists are routinely threatened, women journalists are labelled as ‘prostitutes’, and journalists practice self-censorship to protect themselves from these attacks”, the organisation said.
It also reports an increasingly hostile environment towards the media in Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Croatia. However, Spain, Italy, and the Czech Republic have reported improvements in the protection of whistleblowers.
In recent years, journalists, as well as activists and artists, have also been the subject of SLAPPs (strategic lawsuit against public participation - see EUROPE 12615/1), particularly in Croatia, France, Italy, Ireland and Slovenia, the report states.
To consult the report: https://bit.ly/2OnllGK (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)