{"id":389543,"date":"2024-09-12T18:26:17","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T16:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/09\/12\/liberta-media-italia-commissione-ue-emi\/"},"modified":"2024-09-18T12:54:46","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T10:54:46","slug":"media-freedom-ue-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/09\/12\/media-freedom-ue-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Media freedom: Brussels “keeps monitoring closely” Italian situation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – The European Commission<\/strong> said it will “continue to monitor closely<\/strong>” the health of the Italian media panorama<\/strong>, especially in the areas highlighted in the latest rule of law investigation. This was announced\u00a0by V\u011bra Jourov\u00e1<\/strong>, Vice President in charge of Values and Transparency policies, in response to a letter<\/strong> delivered to her by the European International Movement (EMI)<\/strong> last July. The organisation, along with others\u00a0from the world of information, had raised concerns that media freedom in Italy\u00a0was deteriorating<\/strong> at an accelerated pace following the rise to power of the right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni.<\/p>\n

Shortly before the publication of the Report on the Rule of Law<\/strong>, which came out\u00a0last July 24<\/a>, the EMI and other organisations active in the journalism sector<\/strong> and in the protection of freedom and pluralism of information<\/strong> in Europe\u2014the National Federation of the Italian Press (FNSI), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) the Institute for Media Diversity (MDI\u00a0Global), and the Balkans-Caucasus Transeuropa Observatory\u2014had called<\/a>\u00a0on the\u00a0EU executive to launch an investigation into the health of the Italian news landscape<\/strong>, citing several critical issues including the perceived loss of independence of RAI, the rise of so-called reckless lawsuits against journalists (which in English are referred to by the acronym SLAPP), and the acquisition of AGI by Tosinvest<\/strong>.\u00a0This was the second missive that EMI sent to the commissioner within a couple of months after\u00a0that of May 22<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For now,\u00a0<\/span>Jourov\u00e1’s response, published on X<\/a> from EMI on Thursday (Sept. 12), pours oil on troubled waters. The Commission\u00a0referred back to the July report, where\u00a0Brussels had already highlighted several unresolved issues<\/strong> in the country, mainly<\/span>\u00a0the judicial system<\/strong> and the world of publishing and information<\/strong>. Moreover, the vice president states, “In Italy, there are rules for\u00a0the protection of media pluralism<\/strong> in force in the case of concentrations in the media market<\/strong> that would allow the relevant national media regulators to evaluate the transaction involving AGI<\/strong> if it materialises.”<\/p>\n

The Commission “will continue to closely monitor developments and engage in dialogue with the Italian authorities,” especially concerning the\u00a0implementation of the recommendations of the Rule of Law Report<\/strong> and implementation of the Media Freedom Act<\/strong>, the new regulation<\/a> to protect freedom of information in the EU that will be implemented in its entirety starting in 2025 and\u00a0in some parts as early as next November<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EU executive reiterates positions expressed in July in its rule of law report, while on AGI takeover calms things down: if it happens, there will be rules to follow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":389511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[25871,26180,27426,28328,27254,28984,27924],"class_list":["post-389543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-agi-en","tag-liberta-dei-media-en","tag-media-freedom-act-en","tag-pluralism-media-en","tag-vera-jourova-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389543"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":390469,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389543\/revisions\/390469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}