The Maltese State is being singled out for its role in the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, Hungary for the suspension of Klubrádió (see EUROPE 12655/26), Slovenia for the plight of its news agency (see EUROPE 12781/3)... There are many recent examples of press freedom being undermined in the EU (see EUROPE 12702/28).
To put an end to this, the European Commission issued a recommendation to the EU-27 on Thursday 16 September to strengthen the protection of journalists - a recommendation that will depend on the goodwill of governments.
The text presented contains, as mentioned above (see EUROPE 12789/2), a series of requests concerning the protection of journalists during demonstration as well as women journalists and journalists belonging to minority groups. It also draws attention to the need to ensure the cybersecurity of journalists.
More general recommendations are also made: the EU-27 are called upon to investigate criminal acts against journalists, to provide personal protection to threatened journalists and to ensure that all have non-discriminatory access to information, “including press conferences and documents held by public authorities”.
In a press room on Thursday, Commission Vice-President Věra Jourová admitted, however, that she was concerned “that the recommendation will be taken more seriously by the States where we see less problems”.
“This is what we will have to deal with, through a proactive dialogue with those States where there are risk situations”, she added.
Obtaining “concrete safeguards”
Press freedom NGOs welcomed the recommendation, but shared the concerns expressed by the Vice-President.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) welcomes “a step in the right direction”, but stresses that these recommendations will only lead to concrete improvements if the EU-27 take them on.
“RSF calls on the EU heads of state and government to show responsibility and on the European Commission to show its determination to ensure that these recommendations do not go unheeded”, said Julie Majerczak, RSF’s representative to the EU.
The Civil Liberties Union for Europe assured EUROPE that the Commission “should go further and implement concrete safeguards into European law”. In this respect, the organisation supports the draft Media Freedom Act announced the day before (see EUROPE 12791/7) and cites the forthcoming legislative initiative on “SLAPPs” (see EUROPE 12689/22) as an example of a “safeguard”.
Maltese MEP Roberta Metsola (EPP) - co-rapporteur on the issue (see EUROPE 12782/24) - also called on Member States to comply with the recommendation.
“But we have to go further”, she told EUROPE, also presenting as a “priority” the application of “minimum legal requirements to protect journalists from SLAPPs”.
On Thursday afternoon, the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was in Malta where she visited the place where Caruana Galizia was murdered. She had the opportunity to meet with the family of the victim. Mrs von der Leyen also indicated that the Maltese Prime Minister, Robert Abela, had informed her of the Maltese government’s intentions to better deal with SLAPPs. See the recommendation: https://bit.ly/3nEJAiT (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)