Věra Jourová, Vice-President of the European Commission, presented today the European Democracy Action Plan to empower citizens and build more resilient democracies across the EU. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) welcomes the Action Plan and its concrete provisions to strengthen media freedom and pluralism, but calls for stronger regulation of Tech Giants, while protecting freedom of expression. The Action Plan sets out measures to strengthen media freedom and counter disinformation in the European Union. More concretely, the Commission will recommend measures to promote safety of journalists and present an initiative to protect them from strategic lawsuits against public participation…

More and more journalists and civil society organisations are being sued by powerful businessmen and politicians via strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP). The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has joined a coalition of 87 organisations calling on the EU to ensure those with a watchdog role are protected from such gag lawsuits. The English version of the following Op-ed was published on EURACTIV on 16 November 2020. The full list of signatories is to be found at the bottom. One hot spring afternoon in Malta, a journalist drove up to her house to find a court marshall duct-taping hundreds of sheets…

The latest compromise of the German Presidency on the draft regulation on the proposal for a regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online raises great concerns regarding media freedom and fundamental rights among media and journalists’ organisations. The draft is currently in tripartite discussions between the Council of Ministers under the German Presidency, the European Parliament and the EU Commission with the aim to come to a final adopted text before the end of this year.  In the view of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and media organisations including the European Newspaper Publishers’ Association (ENPA), European Magazine Media Association…

The European and International Federations of Journalists (EFJ-IFJ), respectively Europe’s and the world’s largest organisations of journalists, responded on 9 September to a consultation by the European Commission (EC) on the implementation of Article 17 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market.  Article 17 of the EU Directive aims to close the “value-gap” between rights holders and online platforms and to ensure a fair share of the wealth generated by online platforms using protected works, is distributed to creative industries and their authors, including journalists. In a second submission on the article, the federations supported the…

As EU Member States start discussing the proposed EU recovery plan, the International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ/EFJ), along with 92 other European and international organisations in the cultural and creative sectors are calling for stronger measures to help the sectors recover. This call comes a month after the IFJ launched – with the support of Global Unions Federations – a Global Platform for Quality Journalism  to demand urgent measures to support the press sector and media professionals. Here is our joint statement: As the EU has started discussing the proposed recovery plan, 94 organisations from across Europe’s cultural and creative sectors are uniting their…

“Journalists are in the frontline in the fight against disinformation,” said yesterday Věra Jourová, Vice-President for Values and Transparency in the European Commission. “We are calling on Member States to ensure that they can work safely, in the right conditions, and to make the most of the EU recovery package to support media while respecting their independence.” Yesterday’s Commission communication on fight against COVID-19 disinformation includes a chapter on ensuring freedom of expression with strong messages on the importance of journalists, free and independent media, access to information, transparency and accountability. “The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated the crucial role of…