Balkan Free Media Initiative Avenue Louise, 160/A #10 1000 Brussels [email protected] 19 July 2021 The European Commission. C/O: Thierry Breton, Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President Roberto Viola, Director General, Communications Networks, Content and Technology Giuseppe Abbamonte, Director Media Policy Lucia Recalde, Head of Unit for Audiovisual Industry and Media Support Programmes Dear Sir/Madam, We received the Commission’s letter sent by Ms. Lucia Recalde on 9 July 2021. Thank you for taking the time to provide a response to our two letters. However, a number of our concerns were not addressed. We believe they deserve a more robust response, especially given the fact the Commission has recently renewed its cooperation with Euronews until 2024, as mentioned in your response. The Commission claims in its letter that the proposed franchises in Serbia and Bulgaria are not part of the agreements between Euronews and the Commission. We disagree. The fact is the European Commission provides Euronews with substantial funding and therefore bears at least some responsibility, and can be identified with, any action taken by Euronews, regardless of the stipulations of your partnership agreement. Likewise, we do not see the evidence provided of previous efforts taken by the Commission to ensure Euronews abides by expected editorial and procedural standards as sufficient. Euronews is openly undermining any commitment to those standards, risking the Euronews brand and the reputation of the Commission, in their latest franchises. In Serbia, Euronews’ partnership with Telekom Srbija looks to be in breach of Serbian law, which forbids state-owned companies to own and control media outlets. Article 32 of Serbia’s Law on Public Information and Media (ZJIM) prohibits the state, as well as any company or other legal entity which is partially or fully state-owned, or is partially or fully financed from public funds, from being the owner of media outlets. It is a near certainty that the partnership will limit the objectivity of reporting in favour of the government of Serbia. Serbia is an accession country in which we already observe high levels of government control over the media. To quote the European Commission’s own 2020 report on Serbia: “Political and economic influence over the media continues to be a source of concern.” 1 The same report describes at length the challenges facing the Serbian media, including a lack of transparency in ownership structures and lack of fairness in financing from state resources, the harassment of journalists, tolerance of disinformation and widespread bias towards the government in mainstream media. In this context, it is highly unlikely that any monitoring framework will be enough to prevent government influence over Euronews Serbia. In effect, the government will take control of a new channel which could have provided a much-needed outlet for objective reporting as Serbia approaches its next elections in 2022. Instead, Euronews and by extension the European Commission has effectively sanctioned another blow to media freedom in Serbia. In Bulgaria, the European Commission is funding Euronews as it enters another hugely dubious partnership. This time with an outlet owned by an individual accused of being involved in the arms trade, and whose CEO is widely considered to have been a key propagandist for the rampantly corrupt former government of Boyko Borisov. The European Commission’s failure to stand against Euronews’ partnerships only further legitimises two companies contributing to the dangerous decline in media freedoms in the Balkan region. Both the European Commission and Euronews claim to stand up for European values of democracy and a commitment to human rights, but with these latest franchises it seems that convenient commercial arrangements are the real priority. This is shocking and deserves a far more substantial response from the European Commission. We call on the Commission to immediately investigate these two new franchising deals. If it is found that there is any risk at all that Euronews Serbia or Euronews Bulgaria might undermine media freedoms in the respective countries, the European Commission should publicly acknowledge this and insist that Euronews finds suitable, objective partners. If that fails, the European Commission should rescind its funding of Euronews. The Commission has absolutely no place legitimising media companies which actively undermine media freedom in a region where those freedoms are already so vulnerable. We look forward to receiving your response. Sincerely, Antoinette Nikolova, Director, Balkan Free Media Initiative 1 https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/sites/default/files/serbia report 2020.pdf
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