"Strasbourg Calling" EP Vice President Sabine Verheyen: The European Media Freedom Act has nothing to do with censorship

The deadline for the start of the implementation of the new European Media Freedom Act (FEMA) is fast approaching - August this year.

"Some Member States are already quite far in implementing the European Media Freedom Act because some of them didn't have to change as much because they already had quite balanced media legislation, but there are many Member States who are not prepared in a finalised way. Some are last moment actors – I always call them like this. So one month before coming into force or the deadline for implementation they start quick making the legislation and pushing it through the parliaments. We have the situation, for example in Croatia. Until last week, I didn't hear anything about implementation or that there were stakeholder hearings and involvement of stakeholders. But that seems to be next week, so they are pushing now for legislation.

This is what the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Sabine Verhayen, stated in an interview for the BNR's special correspondent in Strasbourg Irina Nedeva.

EP Vice President Sabine Verheyen and BNR journalist Irina Nedeva

Are you aware in the EP of the readiness to directly implement the European Media Freedom Act in Bulgaria?

"I have to check, I don't have all the Member States in the moment in mind, but I think what we will do after the summer break is that we then check with the Commission which Member States had already implemented EFMA, is the implementation done in an adequate way. and willl we have to act or to support the Member States.

The Danish Presidency want to make also conferences on this issue where they have best practice exchanges. But we also have to recognise that there are Member States which are more critical, which perhaps don't want to implement the legislation. We see at the moment, for example, in Malta, you know the Daphne Galizia's situation we had there. The media landscape is not really free because there is also a lot of pressure from Member States. We have the situation in Hungary or in Slovakia where we have a situation that, yeah, they are not really willing to implement this legislation in an adequate manner and there we have to intervene and that is what we can do."

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What could the EU do in cases where Member States are not ready to implement the European Media Freedom Act?

"We will check each and every Member State. What is also planned with our working group on scrutiny on implementation of the Media Freedom Act is that we want to visit and to have exchanges also with representatives out of the different Member States so that we can see what is the situation in that country."

During the plenary debate on EMFA, we heard accusations against the media law that the European Media Services Council would be a centralisation of power similar to what George Orwell described. Far-right parties claim that the EU is becoming a totalitarian regime? How would you respond to these allegations?

"So what we had in the plenary debate was a misuse of the debate, to be honest, because this narrative coming, especially from the extreme right, has no basis in the legislation. The legislation is nothing about censorship. If we would discuss with the DSA, that might be more a situation like that, but this is just implementing a framework for the independence of media and not censorship, it's totally against all these things. It's against surveillance. It's against influence of Member States into the media content. It's totally opposite to what was claimed by the extreme right wing. And that shows that they just are looking for a narrative against the Media Freedom Act because they don't want their member parties or their governments that are in this having to enable independent, critical and free media. The most negative positions came from ESN (Europe of Sovereign Nations). And if you know that the Fidesz party is part of ESN or Le Pen but with the PfE (Patriots for Europe). But most critical were his. And you know which political parties are in this group and so."

Let's imagine that this European law on freedom of the media could be deliberately interpreted and rewritten by some countries in favor of the ruling party - for example, by the far right. Could they use it as a tool for censorship there?

"Yes, these were also thoughts we had. What about this legislation in some cases where you have the willingness to misuse the legislation and that is the reason why we try to formulate it in a way that it cannot be misused as much. We had this discussion, for example, when it came to the ban on spyware, on surveillance on journalists. And that was the discussions we had with the Member States, with the well meaning Member States, who said, But if you have really a serious case of national security issues, incitement to terrorism or what else, we must have the possibility also to intervene on journalists if they are part of, let's say, a terrorist network or something like that, just to be a journalist does not protect you from starting to become a criminal. But just in these, let's say, heavy criminal situations or national security questions, Member States are under special conditions allowed to do so. It's not an easy decision that has to be taken. And I think that is something that protects also misuse in this field.

When it comes to the media authorities and the power media authority might get as being part of the European media board. There you have a regulatory mechanism because all the decisions have to be taken in the media board with the two third majority. So we just will have a situation that it can be structurally misused by such states when we have, a two third majority of Member States that want to misuse. And I think if that happens we have other problems than that."

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English publication: Rositsa Petkova
Photos: Rositsa Petkova

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"Strasbourg Calling" EP Vice President Sabine Verheyen: The European Media Freedom Act has nothing to do with censorship

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