EFJ asks Luxembourg drop charges against journalist over LuxLeaks

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) today condemned the Luxembourg authorities for accusing the French journalist, Édouard Perrin, of disclosing confidential information of the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC) about custom made tax deals for multinational corporations known as LuxLeaks. According to the indictment issued by the investigating judge, on 23 April, Perrin was charged for being a “co-author, if not an accomplice, in infractions committed by one of PwC’s former employees”. Ricardo Gutierrez, the EFJ General Secretary said, “It is shameful that the Luxembourg authorities are going after a journalist who has acted entirely in the public interest to publish the information. The authorities…

Verhofstadt: “EU Progress Report does not say much about press freedom”

“The annual Progress Reports produced by the European Commission does not say much about the situation of press freedom and freedom of expression in the candidate countries. Therefore, I call the Commission to better focus on those topics as we need a deeper analysis and development on those important topics, specially regarding the situation in Turkey”, said Guy Verhofstadt, member of the European Parliament and leader of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe of (ALDE) , during a seminar on Press Freedom in Turkey co-organized on 22/04/2015 by ALDE and the Greens. The liberal MEP’s call to…

Austria: Journalists’ union (GPA-djp) demands fair play from media employers

Vienna: After the first bargaining round for a collective agreement in the daily and weekly newspaper sector, its supplements and editorial digital services for employed journalists, technical workers and freelances, there has not been any consensus with the Austrian Publishers Association (VÖZ). The chairman of the GPA-djp Franz C. Bauer said: There is a shadow over the positive agreement we negotiated last year with the employers. We had agreed that for the next bargaining round we would focus on freelances – our demand for a adequate rise of the fee per line was however refused by the employers.“ The next…

EFJ congratulates new leadership at Belarus Association of Journalists

The EFJ affiliate, the Belarus Association of Journalists (BAJ) elected a new chairman at its  IX Congress on 24 April. The out-going chair woman, Zhanna Litvina, had been serving the BAJ for almost 20 years announced the candidate for the chairmanship Andrei Bastunets. Litvina, had headed the organisation since it was founded in 1995. Litvina called Bastunets “conscience of the organisation, a person you can always rely on”. Bastunets, 48, a former deputy head, was elected chairman of BAJ, an organisation with 1,300 members. Andrus Klikunou , who is a member of the EFJ Freelance expert Group, was elected for…