The Hungarian independent media is up in arms. Věra Jourová, deputy president of the European Commission in charge of transparency and values, after years of postponement, admitted to Euronews today, on World Press Freedom Day, that the commission is powerless against the Central European Press and Media Foundation (KESMA) conglomerate, which was created practically overnight in 2018.
A few months after its formation, a commission investigation was launched in Brussels at the request of Benedek Jávor, representative of the City of Budapest at EU headquarters, and the Mérték Média Monitor, a workshop of media analysts who assess and attempt to influence media policies. They asked that “the politically biased targeting of advertising spending be considered illegal state aid.” However, it seems that the commission was unwilling to accept their arguments and stuck to its original rules governing economic competitiveness.
As Jourová explained, “Of course, I would like to move, but the current competition rules are designed to catch much bigger cases than that. In financial terms, the KESMA case in Hungary is too small.” Her explanation is only partially accurate. The real problem is that the European Union currently handles media companies solely as economic actors and not as vehicles of information and contributors to democracy. As such, it cannot make any moves against the kind of media concentration that occurred in Hungary when alleged owners of media outlets gave away their valuable holdings to create KESMA, made up of close to 500 news outlets. The final result was one independent daily paper, Népszava, one radio station in Budapest, which has since lost its frequency, and one semi-independent television station.
The only hope, which unfortunately doesn’t do us any good in the short run, is that Jourová promised that next year a proposal will be made to regulate the EU media market. Apparently, new rules will be formulated, which will then be presented to the member states.
To demonstrate the frustration felt not just by Hungarian journalists but also by reporters from all over the world who are following the deterioration of media freedom in Hungary, let me describe a scene that took place in July 2020 at a press conference given by Dana Spinant, deputy chief spokesperson of the European Commission. She made the mistake of expressing her “concerns” about the Hungarian situation. Journalists and the public in Hungary are so fed up with these people’s “concerns” that one feels like advising those in charge to drop that word altogether from their vocabulary. Well, on that day in July 2020, some of the journalists who were present wanted to know why, “if the commission is so concerned about the situation of the Hungarian media, nothing has been done for years about the two submissions that dealt with government overreach in the Hungarian media market.” One dated back to 2016 and the other to 2019. At that point, Arianna Podesta, the spokesperson on competition issues, explained that “the evaluation of the 2016 submission is ongoing.” That didn’t quiet the journalists. On the contrary. One of them called the EU’s failure to respond adequately to questions about the submission for four years “a joke and a disgrace.”
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News filtered through pro-government bubbles
Current EU regulations are totally inadequate to handle the undemocratic manipulation of the media that is being carried out by several East European governments, most obviously by those of PiS in Poland and Fidesz in Hungary. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Polish government, which frequently imitates the schemes emanating from Viktor Orbán’s fertile mind, would, on the basis of Jourová’s admission of impotence, begin a similar concentration of pro-government media outlets and exert financial pressure on the media critical of the present Polish government.
Hungarian Minister of Justice Judit Varga ridiculed Jourová and the European Union on Twitter, saying, “How sad that there are rules which prevent politically motivated moves by the Eurocrats.” Varga wanted to know “why is it so frustrating for a commissioner that everything is working properly in a member state?” The utter cynicism of these people is staggering.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the UNESCO Windhoek Declaration for the Development of a Free, Independent and Pluralistic Press. That declaration led to the recognition by the UN of World Press Freedom Day, to be celebrated every 3rd of May. The theme of this year’s World Press Freedom Day is “Information as Public Good,” which underlines “the indisputable importance of verified and reliable information and calls attention to the essential role of free and professional journalists in producing and disseminating this information, by tackling misinformation and other harmful content.”
How inspiring, but let’s see what happened in Hungary today, where “everything is working properly.” LMP tried to publish a communiqué at the Hungarian Telegraphic Agency’s (MTI’s) National Press Service (OS). It started with the following words: “Freedom of information is also a guarantee of freedom of a people. On World Press Freedom Day, LMP is in favor of the media being able to carry out its work — in Hungary, too — free from political influence.” The statement ended with the following words: “In Hungary today, not only is the press not free, but a large part of the Hungarian people is cut off from truly credible news sources.”
Not surprisingly, OS refused to publish the communiqué. Its rationale was that, in order to be published, the text “must not harm the reputation and business interests of public media organizations, must not be directed against any organization of public media or its employees, the public media service provider, the Media Service Support and Asset Management Fund or other organizations of public media services as defined by law.” Happy World Press Freedom Day!