EU Press Freedom Degrades Amid Reduced Public Trust and Journalists Facing Threats

A new report by Liberties warns that press freedom in the EU has reached a crisis point due to systemic legal harassment, physical violence, and political interference.

According to the Civil Liberties Union for Europe’s (Liberties) fifth annual media freedom report, released on April 28, EU officials should maintain increased vigilance due to press freedom and pluralism coming “under sustained attack” across Mainland Europe. The report notes that journalists in the EU face rising harassment, threats, and violence while working for news outlets that are owned by a select coterie of influential proprietors. With the space for independent journalism ceding ground, the public is beginning to lose trust in the media. Political interference, budget cuts, and restrictions on access to information have also played their part in the degradation of public media independence.

Furthermore, the safety of European journalists saw a worrying decline to a “crisis point” in 2025, with reporters and media workers facing “extreme physical violence and systemic legal harassment” such as bomb attacks on investigative reporters. Online harassment also witnessed a significant uptick, with a record 377 online attacks targeting journalists in 2025 and politicians in countries such as Malta, Hungary, and Romania, attacking the credibility of the press. Journalists were placed under state surveillance in countries such as Italy, while lawsuits seeking to force journalists into submission were widespread.

Moreover, the report also indicated financial instability as being a major deterrent to public media, with calls to merge public broadcasters, closure of radio stations and television channels, and major budget cuts being proposed across various European countries. The report cited EU member countries not implementing relevant EU legislation, such as the anti-SLAPP directive and the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). CIO Bulletin views the implementation of measures such as the EMFA as a positive step towards addressing major concerns such as protecting journalists, making media ownership transparent, and securing the independence of public service media and regulatory bodies.