Debate: Government attempts to silence free media in Poland, Hungary and Slovenia
Date: WEDNESDAY, 10 MARCH 2021
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

I think that the debate also shows that we have to be very vigilant, not only in the three countries which we are debating today, but in all the Member States. Because when you look into the Media Pluralism Monitor, which we published last year and which we will publish again in June this year, the trend is worsening everywhere in Europe, almost everywhere. And so the vigilance is very, very important and we have to look at the issues from a wider perspective because we have a lot of lessons from recent history when we saw how democratic society was becoming an autocratic regime. And it was always the same pattern: switching off the safeguards. Ruining the democratic safeguards, like independent justice, of course independent media, narrowing the space for civil society, being comfortable with specific citizens. The message is: if you want to be active come to elect once in four years and in the meantime, just shut up. I think that this is what we can see already now in some places in Europe. I am not happy to say it, but we have to do more against these trends. That’s why we came with the idea of the rule of law report, which is covering all these different pillars, which we need for the rule of law principle to be respected at the Member State level. That’s why we are looking at justice system, at media. We are looking at anti–corruption fight and some other things. And we are looking at all the Member States, not only at some. Because we also need to see the trend. We need to be able to start a dialogue with the Member State early enough when we see a worrying negative trend. It’s not the first time the Commission is devoting so much effort and energy to the media sector, because also, as I said, we have varying trends quite visible in in many Member States. And this is the multi-layer issue. This week I will have another meeting with my fellow Commissioners. I will represent the field of values, freedom of speech and right to information. Thierry Breton will represent economic matters, because we need better financing and a stable economic situation for the media. We see clearly that the media are economically weak they are such easy targets for the political pressures. There will be Margrethe Vestager, who is responsible for competition policy, which is so important in my view to change because we have to capture the cases of mergers of the media at the national level, which go against the freedom of expression and freedom of media. I will have the colleague, Ms Johansson, who is representing the field of law enforcement and security for journalists, because we have to do more on this side. Yes, we have two murdered journalists already and we have hundreds of attacks against the journalists in Europe this year, mainly online and mainly against women. So we have data. We have to work with the data properly. All the tools must be used in a forum. So I am in favour of progress in Article 7 because we got stuck for too long a time and we have to see some progress. Maybe the lack of enforceable rules, which many of you mentioned, at EU level show that such a worsening of the media situation was not foreseen by the legislators in the past. It was taken for granted that the media will always be protected and be able to work without any fear and without any political or economic pressure, while we see the truth. And that’s why I am really considering coming up with new measures and new tools. And, as I said at the beginning, we must stop looking at media only as the economic actor on the single market. This is a fatal mistake. We have to enrich our toolbox. The situation in the Member States should improve and this worrying trend should be stopped. Not because Brussels wants that. It has to stop because the citizens in all the Member States need to be objectively informed, because elections also are at stake. We need to guarantee free and fair elections. We need to guarantee that citizens will not be manipulated, that they will be able to cast their autonomous and free vote. And this is extremely important. Two weeks ago, I participated in the All4Jan Award, organised in honour of the murdered journalist, Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová. And the prize rewarded Telex in Hungary, which started from scratch a few months ago, thanks to the support of readers. So at this moment, I would like to pay tribute to all journalists, media workers, media companies and organisations who keep fighting and doing their job under very difficult circumstances. Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude, I know I am beyond the time, one minute, please. I would like now to switch into my language, the Czech language, because I was inspired by Ms Beata Szydło, who said here that she is Polish. Já jsem Češka, jsem hrdá Češka. Jsem hrdá Češka i proto, že Česká republika dokázala za 30 let budovat velmi stabilní demokratický systém. A když byla nějaká ohrožení, tak se okamžitě česká společnost začala ozývat. Není vyhráno a nikde není vyhráno. Ale jako Češka, která se narodila v roce 1964, jsem tedy dost stará, abych si pamatovala dobu před rokem 1989. Panovala jediná oficiální doktrína diktovaná stranou a vládou, která byla neotřesitelná a nesesaditelná, která vládla bez jakékoli veřejné kontroly. Za svobodný názor se šlo do vězení. A to, že jsme dnes společně v Evropské unii, to je pro mě garance, že se tahle situace nebude opakovat v žádném z evropských států. Nepřeji to žádným občanům žádného evropského státu. Proto když říkám, že udělám všechno, abych bránila demokratické hodnoty včetně svobody médií, tak to skutečně plyne i z mého hlubokého přesvědčení, že je to nutné. Proto dávám takhle silné sliby, protože věřím, že je budu moci naplňovat.