How member states’ consultation might impact the European Media Freedom Act

BFMI’s Director, Antoinette Nikolova, participated in an event with Euractiv Bulgaria and other media experts to discuss the European Media Freedom Act - and potential roadblocks it faces as it moves through the European Parliament process.

At the event, Nikolova highlighted how state control is a strategy to silence free press, citing BFMI’s study that identified three ways to fight state capture: the introduction of stronger regulation to enable monitoring of media ownership; reforms to strengthen the independence of public broadcasters and state regulators to avoid political influence; and transparency and monitoring of allocation of public funds to media entities.

Read the full Euractive article on the event here, or below:

How member states’ consultation might impact the European Media Freedom Act

Experts have warned that the Commission’s proposed European Media Freedom Act may face further obstacles as it enters consultation with member states.

As the Media Freedom Act moves to examination by member states and the European Parliament, EURACTIV Bulgaria held a conference with media experts to examine potential roadblocks in the process.

The Commission released its proposal for a Media Freedom Act to a mixed reaction from civil society and media sector organisations on September 16.

Julie Majercsak, head of the Brussels office of Reporters Without Borders, voiced concern that the text could be weakened “in particular by some member states” during the legislative process.

Asked if these states would be the “usual suspects” Poland and Hungary, she mentioned no names but hinted that the list would be longer.

“We can expect some resistance and reluctance from some member states,” she said, hinting at risks even if the decision is to be taken by a qualified majority.

In that sense, she said that the role of Germany would be key.

“If we lose Germany or if we do not manage to convince Germany to support the text, that can be very problematic,” Majercsak said.

MEP Radan Kanev, who co-hosted the conference, pointed out that the problems with media interference are not personal but structural. The act is needed, he said but added that it should be discussed mainly by experts, not politicians.

“Politicians’ interference in media affairs is always dangerous because we are very much tempted to regulate media in a way that pleases us in specific circumstances. It usually backfires lately. And this is exactly what we should fight with the European Media Act,” Kanev explained.

He stressed the issue of harmonisation proposed by the Commission, specifically when it comes to professional standards and good practices, lamenting that these standards are all falling under recommendations, and not under regulations of the proposed Act.

“We risk entering a very big trap. We already have many too recommendations,” Kanev said.

The MEP also highlighted that binding standards established by media professionals and money which is under the control of politicians are the two key elements not sufficiently considered and elaborated on in the regulation proposal.

At the national level, most media – especially those receiving public finances – are considered as abiding by professional standards “on paper”, Kanev said, hinting that the reality is different.

“I can give many examples in Bulgaria and other countries, of media that are officially covering professional standards and disseminating quite vulgar disinformation and even quite open Russian propaganda during the aggression in Ukraine. So obviously the way these standards are imposed is not working at the moment in Europe”, Kanev said.

He also stressed that the proposed act does not mention European funding for advertising EU programs, describing it as a massive part of the problem concerning media independence and political influence by governing bodies on the media.

Transparency in EU funds for media

In Bulgaria, media experts and independent publishers have been calling on the Commission for years to exercise control over the way the budgets for communicating EU programs in Bulgaria are spent.

The Bulgarian Union of Publishers estimated that those budgets exceed the income from advertising for all the media in the country, highlighting a lack of transparency on where it ends up.

Audrius Perkauskas, deputy head of Unit Audiovisual and Media Services Policy of the European Commission, responded that indeed, EU support for communicating EU programs was not included in the Commission’s legislative proposal, because it was assumed that EU funding is always regulated by very detailed rules.

More broadly, he explained that the Commission’s proposal originated from the Rule of Law Reports.

Since 2020, the Rule of Law Report monitors significant developments, both positive and negative, relating to the rule of law in member states. It covers four pillars: the justice system, the anti-corruption framework, media pluralism, and other institutional issues related to checks and balances.

“The dilemma for us at the Commission was to find a good balance between doing something useful and not running into something that will lead to very strong opposition to the Act,” he said.

Media concentration and ownership

Regarding media concentration, Perkauskas said that while old democracies’ authorities may not “go after the media”, occasionally industrial interests will have “an instinct to own many media outlets and perhaps sometimes use them to further their business interests”.

The Commission representative also highlighted media ownership transparency, which he said was also important from different perspectives: For users to understand who stands behind media service providers, but also for someone wishing to enter the market to understand what is going on and what are the chances to compete.

Antoinette Nikolova, journalist and director of the Balkan Free Media Initiative, highlighted ‘indirect’ media ownership, again citing the example of Bulgaria.

“For many years we had one dark person, a politician that controls more than 70% of the media market,” she said, indirectly referencing Delyan Peevski, a shady mogul under US Magnitsky sanctions now enjoying immunity as MP. Officially Peevski has sold his media, outlets but still retains sizeable influence over the Bulgarian media landscape.

“He is still a big player but he does not need to own media anymore,” Nikolova said, explaining that such actors can interfere via proxies with instruments such as the anti-trust commission, the media regulator, formed as a result of political brokering, and the rating agency GARB which acts as a monopolist in Bulgaria.

Regarding media in the wider region, Nikolova said that state control is the strategy to silence the free media, referring to a study her NGO conducted that identified three ways to fight state capture: The introduction of stronger regulation to enable monitoring of media ownership; reforms to strengthen the independence of public broadcasters and state regulators to avoid political influence; and transparency and monitoring of allocation of public funds to media entities.