Meeting for the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council, EU Media Ministers discussed the Media Freedom Act (EMFA) on Tuesday 16 May. Supported by a progress report from the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council (see EUROPE 13174/25), they shared the most important issues for their Member States. While most welcomed Sweden’s work to balance the text and acknowledged that an agreement is “within reach”, there are still elements that need to be clarified.
National competences
Once again, various countries, including Germany, Slovenia, Poland and Denmark, recalled that the EU media sectors are generally rooted in national historical and cultural traditions and that the EMFA should not “undermine well-functioning media sectors”.
Specifically, several countries, including Germany and Hungary, have called for the management of public media to remain a national prerogative - despite amendments by Sweden to make it clearer that it is the responsibility of Member States to ensure plurality of content and the independence and proper functioning of public media.
Another concern is national security. Indeed, the EMFA prohibits the use of spyware and guarantees the protection of journalistic sources, except in cases of risk to national security.
France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Estonia, for example, stressed their “attachment” to national governments maintaining control over this issue.
European Board for Media Services
Member States also discussed the independence of the European Board for Media Services from the Commission. This is a subject on which there is consensus, despite the call from some (France, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Austria, in particular) to go further.
However, Ministers remain divided on its tasks. Indeed, Stockholm has suggested that these be limited to audiovisual media. Countries such as Denmark and Germany have thus renewed their commitment to self-regulatory systems, usually associated with the print media. France has even called for the exclusion of “mergers that only concern the print media” from the Board’s competencies. On the contrary, Estonia recalled that the digital age has contributed to blurring the distinction between a print media group and an audiovisual group. Croatia, on the other hand, has argued for equal treatment of media, regardless of the medium.
Very large platforms
Sweden has also addressed the relationship between the media and very large digital platforms, strengthening the guarantees offered to media content on the platforms, but tightening the conditions to benefit from them. This provision is reminiscent of the ‘media exemption’, which was finally withdrawn from the Digital Services Act (DSA) (see EUROPE 13152/16), and on which many Ministers have called for a balance to be found.
In addition, countries such as France, Austria and Germany are in favour of making digital platforms subject to some of the EMFA obligations, including merger control. Ireland, for its part, called for caution.
Towards a common position?
Ministers discussed other aspects of the future legislation. For example, Romania believes that media owners need to be protected from changes in platform algorithms that can undermine their business models. States such as Belgium, Cyprus and Croatia have expressed concerns about the administrative burden of implementing the EMFA.
While Member States were more supportive of the EMFA than in its early days (see EUROPE 13073/25), there was no unanimity on the text. Thus, despite the opinion of the EU Council’s Legal Service (see EUROPE 13163/19), Hungary and Poland questioned the choice of Article 114 TFEU on the internal market as the legal basis, as well as the choice of a Regulation.
While the EMFA needs a qualified majority of Member States, Stockholm hopes to reach a EU Council position endorsed by the Member States’ deputy ambassadors to the EU (Coreper 1) before the end of its six-month Presidency. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)