Press freedom has deteriorated across Europe in the past year and is even ‘on its last legs’ in some Member States. This is the conclusion of an annual report released on Monday by human rights organization Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties). The report was produced in collaboration with 37 NGOs in 19 European countries.
Evidence of the “continuous erosion” of media freedom, according to Liberties, are widespread attacks on journalists and governments that restrict access to information. The problem is by no means limited to countries with strongly anti-rule of law governments. Countries where a large part of the news media are in the hands of a small number of owners are also at risk, Liberties said. The Netherlands is specifically mentioned in this case: almost all Dutch newspapers, including NRCare owned by Mediahuis or DPG.
A negative outlier is (again) Hungary, where public media are under the control of the government of the radical right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. A disproportionate amount of government subsidies in Hungary also flow to news media that refrain from criticizing the government. The growing concerns about press freedom in Italy, where a critical monologue about fascism was recently banned from the Italian public broadcaster, are also underlined by Liberties.
Across Europe, journalists are hampered in their work by violence, intimidation and surveillance. For example, journalists are regularly taken to court on weak grounds in order to exhaust journalistic resources and prevent publications. This form of legal harassment is strategic lawsuits against public participation (also called ‘SLAPPs’), and should be combated in the future with a new European ‘anti-SLAPP directive’ — but its effectiveness remains to be proven.
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