{"id":429506,"date":"2025-06-12T13:07:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T11:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/06\/12\/spionaggio-giornalisti-ue-italia\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T15:46:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T13:46:16","slug":"brussels-warns-italy-on-spying-on-journalists-we-will-enforce-eu-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/06\/12\/brussels-warns-italy-on-spying-on-journalists-we-will-enforce-eu-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Brussels warns Italy on spying on journalists: ‘We will enforce EU law’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Spying on journalists, the Commission is back to pressuring Italy. “It is unacceptable if confirmed,<\/strong>” said\u00a0the executive vice-president and responsible for Democracy, Henna Virkkunen<\/strong>, regarding the case<\/a>\u00a0involving Fanpage and its director, Francesco Cancellato, who was spied on through a Paragon Solutions spyware. “The Commission is aware of the recent reports on the use of Paragon,” says the Commissioner, who warns Italy that the new European Media Freedom Regulation (EMFA)<\/a>\u00a0will be applicable from August 8, 2025, and “the Commission will use all the tools at its disposal to ensure the effective application of EU\u00a0law.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Virkkunen finds himself having to respond to a parliamentary question<\/a> filed by MEPs from the PD, M5S, and AVS, who demand an account of what is happening in the country, pointing the finger at the current national government, the one led by Giorgia Meloni. The deputy leader of the 5 Star Movement’s delegation to the European Parliament, Gaetano Pedull\u00e0,<\/strong> exults: “The European Commission reminds us that all EU regulations violated by this espionage case must move forward, guaranteeing respect for the rule of law in our country.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
[credits: Gibr\u00e1n Aquino\/Wikimedia Commons]<\/figcaption><\/figure>The affair agitates the majority. The government in Italy – engulfed in the scandal\u00a0after Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano admitted to\u00a0spying on the Mediterranean NGO via Paragon’s\u00a0Graphite spyware program<\/a>\u00a0– said it had nothing to do with the\u00a0case. However, the Israeli company\u00a0canceled all existing contracts after accusing the government\u00a0of failing to use the option available to verify whether the Paragon system had actually been used — and by whom — against the director of Fanpage.<\/p>\n

However, the affair also affects those in the opposition today. The NGO active in providing rescue at sea to asylum seekers reportedly had already been the subject of interceptions authorized in 2019 by the second\u00a0Conte government; thus, the PD-M5S coalition today attacking the government majority. The all-Italian and all-tangled affair is becoming increasingly\u00a0European: next week in Strasbourg, the EU Parliament plenary session will take stock of the situation on\u00a0using\u00a0computer espionage programs two years after the recommendations to eliminate the threat<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Executive Vice-President Virkkunen returns to the Paragon affair and the spying on journalists in Italy: ‘As of August 8 new rules start to apply and we will enforce them by all means at our disposal’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":418114,"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":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","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_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"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25712],"tags":[31480,29956,26395,27044,29984,26770,30253,25830,30279,30381],"class_list":["post-429506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","tag-government-county-bis-en","tag-espionageand","tag-europeanparliament-en","tag-liberta-di-stampa-en","tag-henna-virkkunen-en","tag-journalism-en","tag-m5s-europe-and","tag-governo-meloni-en","tag-onpedulla","tag-spyware-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429506","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\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429506"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429544,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429506\/revisions\/429544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}