EUROPE

Autumn 2008

by William Horsley

Europe’s voters seem to be in a foul mood. Look at the way the Irish threw out the Lisbon treaty, despite their pro-European reputation. They certainly weren’t taking the advice of the media who by-and-large supported the “Yes” campaign. Political leaders across Europe are finding it hard to get the people to accept their preferred model of pan-European governance, so in a sense Europe’s media and governments are in the same boat. Both are mistrusted by the very people they are supposed to serve.

The public mood seems to be “a plague on both their houses.” It’s a dangerous situation for democracy and one that is being made worse by the parlous state of the media in Europe. With freedom of expression under attack across the continent and concentration of ownership silencing independent journalists, the media are in poor condition to mediate between Europe’s rulers and the ruled.

In a healthy democracy, the press and broadcasters act as watchdog and inquisitor as well as mediator between the authorities and the general public. In Europe, this job is especially vital because, even without the Lisbon treaty, the EU amounts for half a billion people to another layer of government. It’s also a government without an official opposition to bother the powers-that-be, and it can’t be ejected at the next elections. The European Commission and the other EU institutions are quasi-permanent, and scrutiny of their actions by the European Parliament, however vigorous, is not enough to persuade the public that Europe’s political elite is being held to account on their behalf. That task falls to the media.

Unfortunately, the current fragility of the media can be measured in a steady loss of independence, diversity and confidence. It is beset by economic and official pressures and the wider ramifications for Europe are barely acknowledged. For example, European policymakers are well aware of the recent assaults on media freedom in much of the former Soviet Union, but are determined to treat it as a problem “over there” even though its effects are felt everywhere. As the independent media in Russia retreat in the face of severe pressures, including murders like that of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the authorities are free to propagate the idea of a “hostile Europe” among their own people. This has devastating consequences for Russia-EU relations. In the absence of balancing opinions, a majority of Russians now in large part blame the West for the disastrous mistakes of the “democratic decade” of the 1990s.

European media, too, are suffering from a loss of independence and freedom of expression. Across the continent, journalistic freedom has been limited by laws that have been tightened in the name of security and counter-terrorism. Complaints are heard from Ljubljana to Paris about censorship and unreasonable official pressure. In Italy and Armenia, organisations concerned with media freedom and civil rights see real dangers of fused political and media power driving back the boundaries of free expression. In London and The Hague, as well as in Warsaw and Bratislava, governments have adopted more restrictive press policies. Access to official information and briefings is being limited and governments have sought various ways to control journalists’ ability to question public authorities. It is a self-defeating tactic which can only increase people’s suspicions that their governments are not being open and honest.

Of course, it would be absurd to pretend that Europe’s media are free from significant faults. The mainstream media must accept a share of the responsibility for the fact that most Europeans feel under-informed or confused about EU affairs. Yet those officials and politicians who point the finger of blame solely at the media should be careful. Voters are not fooled by superficial shows of unity at European summits; they see the fierce national rivalries and unresolved disputes which lie beneath. People know there are fundamental differences about the way decisions are taken in the Union, about its size, its budget and how Europe should deal with a more assertive Russia. Europe’s body politic will not be restored to health by politicians claiming the media are responsible for the unpopularity of EU rulers, or by restricting journalists’ freedom of action. Europe requires a confident, inquiring media which can hold governments to account and restore public faith in them.

These issues of trust are coming to a head. Most EU leaders are apparently determined to find ways to get around the Irish “No” vote and implement the terms of the Lisbon treaty anyway. This risks provoking an explosive clash between Europe’s political leaders and significant sections of their populations. Even supporters of the Lisbon treaty were taken aback at the sleight of hand involved in re-packaging the failed Constitution treaty – a matter of “changing the terminology and keeping the substance” as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said – and then using various manoeuvres to avoid fresh referendums in most countries.

The Irish “No” was also a heavy blow to the credibility of the Commission’s “Plan D for Democracy and Debate.” Afterwards, the European Commissioner for communications, Margot Wallstrom, had the nightmare job of arguing in television interviews that the Irish referendum should not stand in the way of the EU acquiring the new powers set out in the Lisbon treaty because the leadership of Europe was sure they would need them to serve the people. That self-serving argument was greeted with incredulity and seized on by critics as evidence that the EU’s ruling class is deaf to the voice of the people. Yet, despite the democratic challenge of the Irish vote to the entire Union, the weakness of Europe’s mainstream media means they will have a tough time mediating between the electorate and the elected.

That may sound alarmist. After all, global studies show that Europe’s media are among the freest and most developed. But that picture has grown darker, according to a Survey of Media Freedom in 20 European countries published late last year by the Association of European Journalists. That found the independent media sector has sunk to historic lows in terms of economic viability, professional standards and morale. Journalists complain they are subject to more political interference than at any time since the end of the Cold War. In the Czech Republic, Poland, France and the UK, there have been an alarming number of cases where representatives of the press have been publicly attacked as irresponsible or extreme when questioning the actions of the powerful. Former British premier Tony Blair left office last year calling the media “feral beasts”. In Prague, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has called journalists “the political opposition”.

The AEJ’s survey also found that the period of exuberant free expression in the former communist bloc in the 1990s has in Russia given way to the oppression or elimination of independent media. It also uncovered a disturbing pattern of politicised media ownership and self-censorship elsewhere. European governments are directly responsible for part of the problem, including the emasculation of many independent public television and radio services. The survey details how the governing political parties in many Council of Europe member states, including Poland, Slovakia, Croatia and Armenia, have appointed their own placemen and women to manage public broadcasting and – say journalists – have sought to use them for propaganda purposes.

New anti-terrorism and security laws have also been widely used across Europe to discourage or prosecute journalists. The effect has been to deter investigative reporting and make it harder for the media to hold governments to account over abuses of power. These abuses include alleged human rights violations when European states cooperated with the secret US programme of “extraordinary renditions” of terror suspects.

Sweeping changes in media technology, the globalisation of capital and the concentration of media ownership have at the same time sharply reduced the diversity of media businesses across the continent. This trend has meant the everyday professional life of many European journalists has become increasingly precarious, leading to editorial shortcuts and a loss of quality.

By the time the AEJ published a supplementary survey update in February, it had found overwhelming evidence that media freedom was in retreat in Europe as a whole. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi had returned to power without any effective legal block on his ability to use his massive media holdings for his own political advantage. In France, journalists at financially stricken Le Monde had become more vulnerable to losing their longstanding editorial control, and the country was also close to losing the last of the mainstream publications still out the hands of big business conglomerates. In Slovakia, the government was preparing a press law which, when passed, exposed newspapers to arbitrary interference by granting a sweeping right of reply and comment to anyone mentioned in print. In Slovenia, 571 journalists signed a petition demanding an end to what they said was censorship and government meddling in editorial appointments. Their claims were denied, but publications critical of the government said they had suffered disastrous losses of advertising revenue after official pressure was put on major advertisers who depend on government favours.

The media’s problems extend to Brussels. The EU prides itself on its openness to the media, publishing most official documents and holding daily press conferences at the Commission. But the AEJ and other media monitoring groups have serious questions for the main EU institutions. For example, journalists and cartoonists faced physical threats after controversial Danish cartoons were published about the prophet Muhammad. Yet the head of the International Press Association in Brussels, which now represents the world’s largest foreign press corps, found the EU was “too timid” when defending freedom of expression during the Danish cartoons crisis. Local IPA president Lorenzo Consoli said the Commission tries to manipulate media coverage by “spinning” and avoiding controversial topics. Commission spokesman Joe Hennon says his department is constantly increasing the flow of timely information in three languages, but acknowledges that specialist officials should speak directly to the media more often.

There are also examples of the EU turning a blind eye to the media’s concerns. Appeals for support from the Slovenian journalists who accused their own government of censorship were brushed aside, with EU officials saying it was a matter for the member state and the Council of Europe to deal with. Senior members of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly are anxious that their work is being sidelined by the EU, which has a much higher profile and wider powers. The Council of Europe does an invaluable job and there has been a stream of rulings from the European Court of Human Rights holding member states in breach of their obligations on media freedom.

Some EU institutions have recently begun to take notice of certain glaring defects in the system. The Commission is looking into the need for new rules to counter the concentration of media ownership and to shield editors from direct pressure from advertisers. The European Parliament’s Culture Committee is calling for better guarantees for the right of journalists to protect their confidential sources. This comes four years after Stern journalist Hans-Martin Tillack was arrested by Belgian police, investigating his exposure of fraud at the EU’s Eurostat statistics agency. Tillack was last year vindicated in Strasbourg’s European Court of Human Rights.

The EU’s attempt to forge a single political space is once again in disarray, with many European leaders openly acknowledging that a serious division between them and their voters lay behind the Irish rejection of the Lisbon treaty. Passions are being inflamed as people argue about the pros and cons of greater European integration, and for journalists the gold standard of reporting such a complex and controversial subject must be accuracy, independence and intelligent inquiry. It is not a standard that they always live up to, but that is no reason for Europe’s political leaders to ignore the serious decline in freedom of expression that is occurring across the continent. It is in the democratic interests of the institutions of Europe that the media should be fit, willing and able to act as watchdogs of officialdom on behalf of the public. That probably calls for a major change in the EU’s political culture, but would seem essential if it really is to come “closer to its citizens.”