The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ and EFJ) have strongly backed calls by Greek journalists to prevent banks forcing the closure of the country’s oldest newspapers and threatening up to 500 jobs. The IFJ and EFJ have backed demands from their Greek affiliate, the Journalists’ Union of Athens Daily Newspapers (JUADN), to stop the banks foreclosing on the Lambriakis Press Group (DOL) loans.  The group, which owns the oldest national newspapers To Vima and Ta Nea, is facing serious trouble after the banks threatened to call in their loans. Over 500 media workers, including 250 journalists, most of…

By adopting the draft report on “A European Pillar of Social rights” by Rapporteur Maria João Rodrigues (S&D, PT), the European Parliament adopted the principle of equal treatment saying that  “All workers should have their basic rights guaranteed, whatever their form of employment and contract”. This is one of the main demands the EFJ puts in the response to the Social pillar consultation, which had been initiated by the European Commission, see We thank the rapporteur and the European Parliament for extending the notion of social rights including the right for collective bargaining and joining a union to all workers…

The European Federation of Journalists backs Association of Journalists of Macedonia (AJM) in condemning verbal abuses by the authorities against journalists. Such actions are damaging for the freedom of expression and are limiting the public access to the information. One of the major political parties in Macedonia VMRO-DPMNE accused Fondation Open Society Macedonia for corrupting the journalists and urged to “clean” the “media of Soros”. AJM calls these claims “a pure spin of the government” and finds it very dangerous to call for violence against journalists, as such comments might have negative consequences in the future. The full announcement by…

On Wednesday 18, during the streaming of Barack Obama’s press conference, Facebook temporary blocked RT account on the grounds of a copyright complain. According to the social network the originally 72 hour ban happened due to the copyright notification, which they received from Current Time TV, a Russian-language media jointly owned by Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America. Russian broadcaster RT, previously known as Russia Today, claimed that they used AP direct feed, which they officially subscribed to. They believed that there might be other reasons for such actions, as this blockage wouldn’t let the media channel to…