European Media Freedom Act

Key points

The EESC:

• recalls that media freedom and diversity are key for the rule of law and liberal democracy;
• deplores worrying developments in the EU and welcomes the European Commission's initiatives for media freedom;
• considers that mere recommendations and a soft-law approach are not enough and rather that free and independent media must be a binding criterion for the rule of law report and mechanism;
• is concerned about whether the completion of the internal media market is a sufficient approach for protecting media freedom and pluralism;
• welcomes the European Commission's acknowledgement that media market concentration leading to monopolies can be a massive threat to media freedom and plurality. However, market concentration can be meaningful, and does not have to have such negative effects;
• welcomes proposals to strengthen and defend editorial independence and stresses the need for upholding journalist and publishers' independence;
• underlines the need for adequate and stable financial resources to ensure that public media are impartial and entirely independent;
• considers that binding requirements for transparency of media ownership are important but such requirements should not lead to an excessive administrative burden for small media outlets
• is concerned about the lack of independence of some national regulatory bodies, and calls for a framework ensuring their independence;
• welcomes the creation of a European board for media services, insists on its full independence and the one of national regulatory bodies participating in it;
• calls on the European Commission to react in accordance with the existing provisions of EU anti-concentration law where national regulators fail to address media market concentration;
• welcomes binding transparency requirements with regard to the allocation of State advertising;
• welcomes annual monitoring, calls for relevant stakeholders and civil society to be consulted, and proposes widening the monitoring scope to other aspects of media freedom and plurality.