The US president Donald Trump has threatened to target Europe after launching then pausing import tariffs on Canada and Mexico. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) believes that now is the right time for European governments to make tech giants pay to profit from content produced by European news outlets and their journalists. We call on governments to follow Australia’s example with its newly adoptednews bargaining incentive aimed at ensuring large digital platforms contribute to the sustainability of news and journalism. Tax Big Tech in order to guarantee platform remuneration (fair share) for journalistic content: this was one of the…

UPDATE (03.02.2025): We received a counterstatement from ELLE Serbia (see below). The EFJ takes note of the counterstatement from Mondo INC d.o.o., publisher of ELLE in Serbia. However, we contest any intention to cause harm and demand that full light be shed on the termination of the collaboration with journalist Tara Đukić. You’ll find below our reply to the publisher’s counterstatement. ———— Several journalists have been dismissed and a number of attacks against media professionals have been recorded since wider protests swept across Serbia following a fatal accident at a train station on 1 November 2024. The International and European…

“Collective bargaining for freelancers” was the topic of the second ‘Stand up for Journalism’ workshop organised by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the French journalists’ union SNJ-CGT in Vichy, France, on 23-24 January 2025. Thirty-six union representatives and journalists discussed the challenges specific to the self-employed, such as collective negotiations, copyright, and the European legal frameworks.  Freelance journalists are no longer an exception in the media landscape in Europe and many unions that were previously unable to represent them have changed their rules to enable them to do so. Participants have expressed that freelancer is less and less…

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), one of the largest official aid agencies in the world, has been instructed to stop projects following a 90-day foreign aid freeze imposed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The measure affects dozens of independent media outlets in more than 30 countries, deprived of U.S. support programs to strengthen journalistic professionalism, establish media management skills, and promote free and independent media. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) is calling on all potential European donors to take action to compensate for the US withdrawal, in particular to ensure the survival of Ukrainian media, the…

Several journalists working for Hír TV were dismissed on 23 December 2024, just days after forming a union to enhance their working conditions. The European and International Federations of Journalists (EFJ-IFJ) join their affiliate in Hungary, the Hungarian Press Union (HPU), in expressing its solidarity with the dismissed journalists and denouncing a violation of labour law. The redundancies took place against a backdrop of trade union development within Hír TV, a pro-government news channel, as a group of employees joined the Hungarian Press Union (HPU) and formed, on 10 December 2024, the Hír TV Basic Union of the Press Union,…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) today gave its full support to the Serbian journalists’ organisations which have called for a general strike to take part in the action of “general civil disobedience” organised by Serbian students following the tragic accident at the Novi Sad train station, killing 15 people. The EFJ denounces in particular the threats made by the Serbian Minister of Information and Telecommunications Dejan Ristić against the Serbian Coalition for Media Freedom. More than 80 newsrooms in Serbia are on strike today, in response to a call from the Coalition for Media Freedom. Denying the newsrooms’ ability…