On 16-17 June 2025, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) will be hosting a workshop entitled “Mental wellbeing: an invisible crisis in journalism” in Namur, Belgium, as part of the Stand up for Journalism (SUJ) project in partnership with the Association of professional journalists (AJP, Belgium). The workshop will focus on  It will feature insightful speakers from across Europe, including journalists, media professionals, and experts. This workshop is the fourth in a series of five thematic capacity-building workshops. The first workshop was held in Istanbul in September 2024, addressing collective bargaining strategies for freelancers. The second took place in Vichy,…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) will hold its elective general meeting in Budapest, Hungary, on 2-3 June 2025. More than 120 journalists and trade union representatives from 38 European countries will meet and elect the leadership of the federation for the next three years. This is the first time in the history of the EFJ that the organisation holds a statutory meeting in Hungary. Budapest was chosen as the host city of the EFJ congress, representing 295,000 journalists through 73 journalists’ organisations across 44 countries in Europe. Co-organised by the Hungarian Press Union (HPU) and the Association of Hungarian…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), along with two of its affiliates (APJA and AGSH), joined the SafeJournalists Network (SJN) to raise alarm over recent reports of alleged violations of journalists’ labour rights at ABC News Albania, one of the main private television. Information received from numerous journalists indicates that ABC News management may have unilaterally and without prior notice initiated changes to employment contracts, replacing regular agreements with freelance contracts. These changes have reportedly affected up to ten journalists, including reporters, correspondents, and camera operators, across Albania. Fearing retaliation from management, local stakeholders, and negative media reports, the journalists…

On 13 May, the Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán presented a draft of a new foreign funding bill which represents the most serious attack on Hungarian media in years and is the latest step in a more than decade-long campaign by the government to stigmatise independent journalism, undermine its business model and systematically erode media pluralism. If passed, this legislation would effectively represent the first foreign agent-style law in the European Union, marking another milestone in Hungary’s democratic decline and deepening the crackdown in what has long been the EU’s worst country for media freedom. Hungary has already…

Russia’s Investigative Committee announced, in a statement on Telegram on 20 May, that a criminal case had been launched against journalist Galina Timchenko. She has been accused of organising the activities of an “undesirable organisation” and posting videos “to foment protest sentiment and to involve the public in the activities of such an organisation”. The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ-EFJ) condemn this action and demand that the Russian government stops criminalising journalism and harassing journalists who have fled the country. Galina Timchenko, 64, a Russian-born journalist based in Latvia and CEO of Meduza, is facing a criminal case recently…

Latvia’s Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) requested information from two media outlets, LETA and Re:Baltica, about content published on their websites in the context of the pre-election municipal campaign to be held on 7 June 2025. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joined its affiliate the Latvian Journalists’ Association (LŽA) in expressing its concern about questions by a state agency into editorial decisions. On 14 and 15 May 2025, Latvia’s news agency LETA and the Baltic Centre for Investigative Journalism Re:Baltica, received similar letters from the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) to provide explanations regarding published content about…