The Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová, gave a brief overview of the work she is currently responsible for on Tuesday 26 October to the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education (CULT).
Among the progress expected in the short term is the completion of the revision process of the European Code of Practice on Online Disinformation initiated last May (see EUROPE 12727/12).
“Our goal is to have the new code ready within a month”, Jourová said. The Commission had invited the signatories of the current code (see EUROPE 12803/16) to work on this revision on the basis of its proposals.
The other two projects underway, under the supervision of the Vice-President, are more concerned with press freedom.
SLAPPs. These are, on the one hand, the draft directive and the proposal for a recommendation on ‘strategic lawsuits against public participation’ (SLAPPs) (see EUROPE 12804/20). These two texts will be presented in the second quarter of 2022.
The Commission is also working on its European Media Freedom Act, announced by its President, Ursula von der Leyen, during her State of the Union speech in September (see EUROPE 12791/7).
Media Freedom Act. “We are at the beginning of our reflection” said Ms Jourová. “Our starting point is the protection of our values and the integrity of our single market. We need a set of rules based on common principles, such as editorial independence and transparency of media ownership. These rules will then define the governance model we will have to put in place”, she summarised, calling on MEPs to give her their views on the initiative.
The Vice-President said that this act should be completed in the third quarter of 2022. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)