A threat to freedom of information and to the articles you read. Several countries, including France, want to introduce an exception to the ban on monitoring journalists, arguing “national security”.
A draft European regulation was presented in September 2022 by the European Commission to protect the pluralism and independence of the media, in the face of a deterioration of the situation in EU countries, such as Hungary and Poland, but also to spyware used against journalists.
The text concerns in particular the respect of the secrecy of journalistic sources and the ban on deploying this spyware, such as Pegasus or Predator, in devices used by journalists. But the member states, at the request of France supported by several countries, insisted on explicitly including the possibility of exceptions “in the name of safeguarding national security”.
On the eve of a negotiation session on Friday in Brussels between representatives of the European Parliament, member states and the Commission, around fifty organizations defending press freedom – unions and journalist companies from many media outlets – in France called on President Emmanuel Macron not to “torpedo” the secrecy of sources and to “withdraw this exemption”.
“This provision could be abused”
For Reporters Without Borders (RSF), “this provision could be used abusively”. “In addition to Finland and Sweden, France is joined in this position by states where freedom of the press is experiencing vicissitudes and where, sometimes, journalists have been troubled by the authorities: Hungary, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Malta,” deplores RSF.
Revealing a contribution to the debates, dated November 6, from the French ministries of the Armed Forces and the Interior, RSF assures that the latter “want to retain the possibility of monitoring journalists” in particular “to identify agents and officers of foreign intelligence services “.
The European Federation of Journalists called on the European Parliament and the Commission “to reject the illiberal and repressive demand” of the seven member states.
In September, Ariane Lavrilleux, a French investigative journalist, was placed in police custody in Marseille, after seeing her home searched by the DGSI.
The European Parliament provides that the use of spyware against journalists can only be authorized “as a last resort” and “on a case-by-case basis” by a judge as part of an investigation into a “crime serious such as terrorism or human trafficking.”
For MEPs, the law must “prohibit the use of spyware in investigations which concern the professional activity of the media and their employees”, specified in October the Romanian elected representative Ramona Strugariu, one of the rapporteurs of the text .
Another crucial point of the legislation: the question of moderation of journalistic content by online platforms. In order to prevent these platforms from arbitrarily removing or restricting articles or video reports, the law provides for separate treatment for media meeting a certain number of conditions.
The law also provides for the establishment of a new European Media Council, made up of representatives of the national regulatory authorities of the Twenty-Seven, for stricter supervision of concentrations in this sector. This body would be responsible for issuing a non-binding opinion on these operations from the point of view of their effect on pluralism.