How the European Parliament financially supports mass media

Last week, the list with entities which received European Parliament grants in 2020 was published. This list can be downloaded here.

It makes for some worrying reading.

Financial support for groups lobbying for more power and money for the EU

For a start, in its wisdom, the European Parliament is handing out thousands and thousands of euros to all kinds of non-profit organisations. The question is why the EU’s directly elected assembly, which is supposed to scrutinize the EU machine, is engaged in the business of handing out cash to civil society. Among the recipients, we can find groups supporting more power and money for the EU, as for example “European Movement”, “Young European Federalists”, “Friends of Europe” and “European Policy Centre”.

Then, as much as one can argue that using taxpayers cash to support groups lobbying for more concentration of power and money in Brussels should not be done by the European Parliament, it is by no means as worrying as the propping up by the European Parliament of that other group receiving EP cash: media.

Financial support for mass media

Surely, the European Parliament itself, which has been complaining about government meddling in media in places like Hungary, should realise that it should not be normal for politicians to make those that are supposed to scrutinize them – journalists – financially dependent. Not that this kind of things are not happening in the old member states. In Belgium, the government hands out more than 800 million euro in state aid to print media, in the form of free postal distribution.

In any case, this is happening out in the open, and the European Parliament seems to find this completely normal.

Here is a list of media groups in Europe that are receiving European Parliament cash. One can only wonder how independent reporting is possible when one is financially dependent on the subject that it being covered:

Alpha TV Cyprus

Altinget.dk, a Danish online newspaper 

Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA), the leading wire service in Italy

Antena 3, the second Romanian 24h news channel

Athens-Macedonian News Agency, a Greece-based news service

Bulgarian National Radio and Bulgarian National Television

Dutch BNR Radio, the only all-news radio station in Netherlands

Dag en Nacht Media BV, a big Dutch podcast network

DPA, a leading German news agency

France Médias Monde, a French state-owned holding company which supervises and co-ordinates the activities of the major public media organizations broadcasting or publishing internationally from France

France Télévisions, the French national public television broadcaster.

Hanza Media, the leading media company in Croatia and Southeast Europe, with 5 daily newspapers, more than 20 magazines, and 20 digital editions

Il Sole 24 Ore, an Italian national daily business newspaper owned by Confindustria, the Italian employers’ federation

Latvijas Radio, Latvia’s national public-service radio broadcasting network

La Vanguardia, a Spanish daily newspaper

Lietuvos ryto TV, a Lithuanian entertainment channel

Postimees Group, an Estonian media group, which headquarters are located in Tallinn, Estonia. The Group is the largest media group in the Baltics

Pro News Bulgaria AD

Rádio e Televisão de Portugal, the public service broadcasting organisation of Portugal

Reti Televisive Italiane, a part of Mediaset, an Italian-based mass media company which is the largest commercial broadcaster in the country

Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française (RTBF), a public service broadcaster delivering radio and television services to the French-speaking Community of Belgium, in Wallonia and Brussels

Radiotelevizija Slovenija, Slovenia’s national public broadcasting organization

Sigma Radio TV Public Ltd, Cyprus

TV IDEA, Slovenia

TVI, Portugal’s fourth terrestrial television channel

Valsts Sia Latvijas Televizija, Latvian TV 

VRT, the national public-service broadcaster for the Flemish Community of Belgium

These are not obscure media outlets, but important media players. Sure, the amounts they receive may sometimes be modest in comparison to their total budgets, but perhaps not in comparison with the percentage of their overall coverage which focuses on EU affairs.

The issue at stake here is not so much that it’s simply lame that the EP has to resort to buying itself airtime in a bid to get some attention, at taxpayers’ dime. It is fundamentally worrying for the sake of democratic scrutiny when politicians are attempting to make the “fourth estate” financially dependent.

Someone should ask a parliamentary question about this. Let’s not hold our breath.