ARTICLE 19, together with other civil society organisations, is calling on the European Parliament to ensure that the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) requires full and meaningful transparency from authorities when allocating public resources to media service providers.
The indicative date for the vote in the plenary of the European Parliament on the European Media Freedom Act has been set for 2 October. While the Council and the Committee on Culture and Education have made improvements to the text, challenges still remain in the state advertising provision under Article 24. It does not provide sufficient tools to prevent authorities from allocating public resources in an unjust and opaque manner.
Therefore, ARTICLE 19 and other civil society organisations call for:
- No reintroduction of the ‘1 million inhabitants’ threshold for publishing information regarding state advertising.
- An EU-wide online database of state advertising that is easily accessible.
- Full inclusion of emergency messages in the concept of state advertising.
- Regular and mandatory reporting obligations for authorities, the result of which must be available to relevant independent and accountable regulators.
- Monitoring of state advertising and state aid allocation.