Ambassadors of EU member states endorsed the provisional agreement on Friday, January 19, 2024, reached in mid-December 2023 between the Council and the European Parliament’s negotiators on establishing the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), a common framework for media services in the EU internal market.
The EMFA will introduce measures aimed at protecting journalists and media providers from political interference, while also making it easier for them to operate across the EU’s internal borders. The new rules will guarantee the right of citizens to access free and plural information and define the responsibility of Member States to provide the appropriate conditions and framework to protect it.
Discussions for adopting such a law have been ongoing since 2022, when the Commission published its proposal on September 16th of that year, which set out new rules to protect media pluralism and independence in the EU. On October 19, 2023 negotiations with the European Parliament commenced on the final shape of the Act until the provisional agreement was reached on December 15.
According to the official press release, the text of the agreement will now be finalized in all the official EU languages and formally adopted by both institutions by April 2024.
