Press freedom and pluralism face ‘existential battle’ across EU, report finds

THE GUARDIAN – Jon Henley Europe correspondent

Media pluralism in many EU member states is being increasingly strangled by a high concentration of ownership, even in countries with traditionally free media markets, according to a report that concludes press freedom is crumbling across the bloc.

The report, produced by the Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) based on the work of 43 human rights groups from 21 countries, said several EU governments were attacking press freedom or weakening media independence and regulation.

[…] In Italy, the report noted the planned acquisition of AGI, a leading news agency, by the Angelucci Group, headed by Antonio Angelucci, an MP from the far-right Lega party who already owns Italian newspapers including Il Giornale, Libero and Il Tempo.

[…] Media ownership concentration – and state media interference – are at their peak in Hungary, where the Central European Press and Media Foundation (Kesma), run by loyalists of Viktor Orbán, the prime minister, owns several hundred media companies.

Oligarchs close to Orbán began buying up major media outlets in 2010, then “donated” them to Kesma, which since 2018 has functioned as “a centralised, pro-government media conglomerate” relying on state advertisements for funding, the report said.

Beyond Hungary, governments also exercise influence over national media through the opaque allocation of state advertising funds, or favouring government-friendly outlets, in Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Malta, Slovenia and Spain, the report found.

The report said public media was a “fully captured government mouthpiece” in Hungary, and heading that way in Slovakia, where new laws have scrapped safeguards for editorial independence. Public media is also vulnerable in Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria and Italy, it said.

The report also found that journalists remain vulnerable to hate speech and physical attacks, suffering police violence in 2024 in France, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Spain. In some countries, female journalists were disproportionately targeted.