Strengthening democracy and media freedom and pluralism in Europe.

 

While there were hundreds of alerts across Europe in 2021, there were also positive developments that were welcomed by media freedom actors. In the beginning of the year, the European Commission announced the establishment of an Expert group against SLAPPs with a specific mission to advise the Commission on matters related to fighting SLAPPs or supporting the journalists and media outlets that were targeted by them. ECPMF's legal advisor Flutura Kusari is also a part of this group and the EC is expected to propose legislative and non-legislative measures to counter SLAPPs. 

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced the details of a new Media Freedom Act during her annual State of the Union speech on 15 September. In that same month, the Commission adopted a Recommendation to Member States to improve the safety of journalists, both on-line and offline. It called for the creation of independent national services to support journalists including, among others, helplines, shelters, and legal advice. In October, the European Parliament voted to adopt the Own Initiative Report (INI) on strengthening democracy and media freedom and pluralism in the EU; the undue use of actions under civil and criminal law to silence journalists, NGOs and civil society. In addition to the European Union institutions and leaders' actions in the field of media freedom, the Office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) also published a Special Report titled “Legal Harassmentand abuse of the judicial system againstthe media” with an aim to bring more attention to the legal risks associated with the journalistic profession and to highlight the increasing abuse of judicial systems against media professionals across Europe.

In a more targeted focus, the European Commission took action in member state specific topics, related to state capture of the media landscape. In April, the EC ap‐ proved a € 2.5 million grant, under the EU state aid programmes, for the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) to fulfil its public service mission. In June, the EC also announced that it would open procedures against Hungary over a decision by the government-controlled Media Council to reject Klubrádió’s application to return to air. In terms of positive developments at the national level, Jean Chéritel, the CEO of the Chéritel group, a fruit and vegetable wholesaler in the Brittany region of France, dropped his defamation action against freelance investigative journalist Inès Léraud in January. The legal threat related to Léraud’s investigation, published in Basta! on 26 March 2019, which shed light on alleged illegal practises of the company. While the media freedom community welcomed the dropping of Mr Chéritel’s defamation action, it must be noted that the enduring chilling effect of vexatious legal threats and SLAPP actions encourage journalists to self-censor, regardless of the initiation of any actual court proceedings. In November in Turkey, two developments took place. While the country had initiated a ban on all audiovisual recordings at demonstrations, through declaration of a circular issued by the General Directorate of Security, the State Council of the Re‐ public of Turkey unanimously overruled that this ban was unlawful. Another positive development concerning Turkey in‐ volved global social media company Meta, as the ban on links for arts and culture publication Tiyatro Dergisi was lifted on Instagram and Facebook, allowing the publishers to share links to their articles again after months of digital censorship. Finally, in October, independent journal‐ ism's significance was also acknowedged by the Norwegian Nobel Committee as they announced their decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 to two journalists, Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.