EU Promises 61 Million Euros to Help Beleaguered Independent Journalism

In an effort of strengthening journalistic practices in the EU, the European Commission said it will allocate 61 million euros ($71.7 million) to help independent journalists, including fending off strategic lawsuits.

It will come by the end of the year, said Czech politician and lawyer Věra Jourová, Vice-President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, whose time in office as EU Commissioner of Justice has seen two EU journalists working on exposing corruption killed.

Three men were charged in the car bomb killing of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia while a businessmen charged of being the key link has not yet been prosecuted.

In Slovakia, a prominent businessman with ties to top politicians was recently acquitted of having ordered the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova.

Jourová announced the funding for independent journalists during a conference on Media Freedom in Bulgaria, organized by EURACTIV Bulgaria. She said the measure was aimed at ensuring pluralism in the EU’s digital media market.

Some of the money will go towards protecting journalists from so-called SLAPP suits usually brought to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defence.

“The Commission cannot win the war to protect the independent media alone, but we will use all the tools at our disposal,” she said, adding that a number of pilot projects would be launched by the end of October.

Practical assistance for investigative journalists would be offered by the European Center for Press and Media Freedom.

The Commission used the opportunity pointing out serious shortcomings in Bulgaria where a lack of transparency of media ownership and the distribution of European money for advertising remains persistent.

Meanwhile, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borisov continues to face protests against his regime, which critics call corrupt and employing illegal practises.

Bulgarian media are under political influence, and there are alarming signals of attacks on journalists.

“We are financing a number of projects for those journalists who are threatened, including the creation of shelters for journalists,” Jourová said. She explained that European money for advertising must be distributed through legally conducted public procurement.

Pavel Szalai, the Reporters Without Borders’ EU and Balkans Coordinator, said that, “Bulgaria is a concentrate of all the problems with press freedom that we find in the EU and the Balkans”.

He noted that in 2019 Bulgaria signed the Partnership for Information and Democracy, which aims to promote freedom of expression but instead is holding down independent journalism.

In March, Reporters Without Borders sent Borisov a Roadmap for Media Policy in Bulgaria, recommending an independent national commission to improve media freedom to allocate state subsidies to the media.

Romanian MEP Ramona Strugariu said that she was working on draft EU legislation to protect journalists and was also worried that EU funds are diverted by authoritarian leaders for their own ends.

Galya Prokopieva, executive director of Economedia, which publishes Capital and Dnevnik, said there is a tendency for the destruction of journalism in Bulgaria, “which we must reverse.”