EU Regulation on Media Freedom and Transparency
Europe already has a law designed to protect the information circulating within its borders, safeguarding journalists who produce it and citizens who consume it. This regulation represents one of the final legacies of the European Parliament as its five-year term concluded with elections on June 9, and it will be implemented by the new European Commission in the forthcoming political cycle starting July 16 in Strasbourg. The so-called European Regulation on Freedom of the Media grows out of a need to shield the press from Russian influence, misinformation, and authoritarian drift that is becoming evident in some member states of the European Union.
“The law arises from a view of an information ecosystem that is deteriorating. Without informational pluralism, there is no democracy”, explains a spokesperson from El Periódico, part of the Prensa Ibérica group, to this publication. Diana Riba, a member of Esquerra Republicana and a rapporteur from the Greens and the European Free Alliance, has led this norm in the European Parliament.
According to the regulation, authorities will be forbidden from pressuring journalists to disclose their sources, and they cannot detain reporters, sanction them, or search through their offices or files. To shield media outlets from political fluctuations, public broadcasters will be held to strict transparency standards in the choice of executives and annual budgets. Private media will be required to disclose the state advertising they receive and identify ownership, which will be collected in a public database.
Russian Influence
The European Parliament hopes that knowing who stands behind each media outlet will help curb false information. “To be recognized as credible media, outlets must be independent from third countries. This transparency helps identify and mitigate foreign interference, including disinformation”, explains German MEP Sabine Verheyen, who has led the legislative proposal from the European People’s Party.
While concerns about regulating the EU media landscape date back to the 1990s, some member states resisted ceding these competencies nationally. Alarm bells rang in 2016 with the U.S. presidential elections, when then-candidate Donald Trump launched a campaign built on falsehoods and accused the media of being complicit in shaping his narrative when attempting to verify his words.
“Since then, there has been growing concern about Russian interference among European authorities due to the impact disinformation could have on electoral processes,” notes Carmina Crusafón, professor and researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona who specializes in European Union communication policies. The regulation is also designed to counter attempts by pro-Russian influence countries that seek to develop authoritarian mechanisms of media control, enabling authorities to set limits on state power while preserving press freedom, the expert adds.
The Social Media Dilemma
The regulation targets the tech giants—Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp; X (formerly Twitter); and the Chinese company TikTok. It prohibits platforms from unilaterally removing content produced by media outlets. At the same time, media organizations must register on platforms so they can be clearly identified and represented in a visible way.
How these lists will be generated remains to be seen, as tech companies are likely to resist creating new departments that would incur costs. If platforms opt for an approach where the media itself registers as such, experts fear it could turn into a loophole of biased blogs that fail to perform the anti-disinformation function they claim to support. “We’ll see whether platforms act on their own or wait for the commission to call them out,” Crusafón observes.
Ultimately, this regulation is mandatory, unlike earlier recommendations. To enforce it, a regulatory body will be established under the European Commission as it takes its initial steps, but it must evolve into an independent entity. Each country will have a national equivalent body; in Spain, this would be the National Commission on Markets and Competition, with room for regional regulators to participate. The initial approach emphasizes pedagogy over punishment.