EU Transparency Chief Says Media's Role Sustaining Democracy Slighted

The European Union “made a horrible mistake in Europe by underestimating the role of media for upholding democracy,” European Commission Vice-President Věra Jourová said, citing the murders of journalists Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in 2017 and Ján Kuciak in Slovakia in 2018. Both probed high-level corruption.

The bloc's leaders also have struggled to deal with authoritarian governments cracking down on media freedom and protecting journalists, said Jourová, a Czech politician whose portfolio covers values and transparency.

That was on February 12, but her words still rang at the European News Media Forum focusing on the safety of journalists, a March 23-25 event which discussed growing online threats to journalists, especially women, being harassed.

This is almost five years after the Council of Europe proposed lengthy recommendations about how to protect journalists, which still have to prove their effectiveness.

The advice has essentially been ignored, particularly by some member states, even as the media has come under siege from hardline governments in Hungary and Poland, both defying the EU’s guiding principle of the rule of law, Jourová also acknowledged.

A critical instrument to protect media freedom links access to EU funding to fundamental democratic values, Jourová said, but Hungary and Poland weren't held to account as the bloc was left to only encourage them to do so.

Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban has been accused by critics of turning the country away from democracy, further showing the value journalists have in revealing wrongdoing.

“The one who can’t understand the values, can understand the money,” said Jourová, just after a court in Budapest allowed the state-run Hungarian Media Council to block automatic extension of the broadcast license for the country’s last independent radio station, Klubrádió. Ever since, the outlet has been forced off the airwaves.

At the same time, independent media outlets in Poland suspended news coverage for a day to protest a planned advertisement tax they worried was planned by the government to destabilize their businesses, said The International Press Institute.

Earlier in March, the EU and most lawmakers in the European Parliament singled out Poland, Hungary and Slovenia of undercutting media freedom and attacking journalists while using the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext.

The European Commission also denounced Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša’s criticism of a reporter who wrote a piece saying media freedom was under pressure amid attempts to overhaul the national press agency there, reported Reuters.

At that time, Jourová told EU lawmakers that, “The COVID-19 pandemic has shown more than ever the essential role of journalists to inform citizens,” especially in the three formerly Communist bloc members.

ANOTHER VIRUS

“More than ever it is time to support the work of the media, not put additional burden or pressure on them ... there should be no political pressure in the first place,” she said, adding that in recent months, “additional worrying developments have happened.”

That came after the Civil Liberties Union for Europe advocacy group pointed to those countries among others for pressuring the media and using their handling of COVID-19 as the means to do it.

The group, in a report co-sponsored by 14 human rights organizations, also noted erosion of democracy and the rule of law in Bulgaria and Romania along with Poland, Hungary and Slovenia and said their governments “used the pandemic as an excuse to weaken democratic standards” and manipulate the judiciary.

A key mechanism for strengthening media freedom and pluralism in Europe, Jourová said, would be the European Democracy Action Plan (EDAP), which was published by the Commission in December 2020.

The plan emphasized threats to female journalists and SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) suits used to deter journalists, six months after the EU Parliament wrote that those were “part of a practice which undermines our democracy.”

Jourová responded that, “Journalists play a vital role in European democracies and they should be able to operate freely, without threats and intimidation,” even as reporters still face growing harassment.

The Commission is also preparing a legislative initiative to curb the increasing use of SLAPPs against journalists, Jourová added. “It’s more and more the case that those who have the money and the influence have the chance to silence journalists by means of lawsuit”, she said. In November, 2020 the IPI together with 87 other organizations and media freedom groups called for changes to EU law to combat SLAPPs.

“The murders of journalists #DaphneCaruanaGalizia and #JanKuciak should have been wake-up calls. Yet, threats & attacks against journalists increase; they are threats & attacks against #democracy as a whole. Journalists hold power to account & help us make informed decisions,” she tweeted as the media forum was being held.

Jourová was the EU's Justice Minister when Kuciak – with his fiancée Martina Kusnirova – and Caruana Galizia were killed, but justice hasn't prevailed. The businessman accused of ordering Kuciak's killing was acquitted and whoever ordered Caruana Galizia's killing has still not brought to trial.

“How many murdered journalists do we need in Europe to take action?” Jourová asked.