The Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) published its annual report on media freedom in the EU on Monday 24 April. While Hungary and Poland were frequently mentioned, the non-governmental organisation deplored the limited progress made in all 18 of the Member States who were surveyed.
A more hostile environment
Regarding media pluralism, the report noted that “the media landscape across the EU continues to be characterised by strong media ownership concentration”. At the same time, the media are subject to political and/or economic pressures that are related to their business model, but also to the unequal distribution of state aid. Finally, the independence of regulatory bodies varies from country to country.
Regarding the safety of journalists, Liberties reports that there has been an increase in attacks on journalists, particularly women. These attacks predominantly took place online or during demonstrations, including by law enforcement. At the same time, the report laments the fact that SLAPPs are becoming increasingly common.
As for freedom of expression, Liberties highlights the difficult balance between protecting national security and combating harmful content versus freedom of citizens. Similarly, freedom of information can be limited by an unbalanced application of data protection laws and the slow processing of information access requests.
Everyone is affected
While countries such as Poland and Hungary are singled out throughout the report, Liberties insists that no country is spared. For example, the Hungarian and Polish public media are under state control... but their Swedish counterparts, however, are threatened with budget cuts by their government.
Liberties concludes with a series of recommendations. In particular, it calls on the EU to support a strong Media Freedom Act (EMFA) and an ‘anti-SLAPP’ directive. It also calls on the EU to sanction violations of media freedom, whether through the rule of law conditionality mechanism or through infringement proceedings.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/6i7
Public opinion is concerned
“People would like us to sanction the breaches of the media independence but we cannot impose any sanction without any law. This is also the purpose of the”, said Věra Jourová. The Commissioner for Transparency spoke on the same day, but in the context of the publication of the “Media Freedom Poll” .
Published annually by the Committee for Editorial Independence, the survey looks at public perceptions of media independence in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic (‘Visegrad countries’). The survey revealed that the majority of respondents are concerned about the current situation. However, those who are most concerned are older people and voters of opposition parties. Supporters of Viktor Orbán’s party (Fidesz) are, for example, the only ones to express that they are more satisfied than concerned about the level of media freedom.
The survey: https://aeur.eu/f/6i6 (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)