DW News published this video item, entitled “Why doesn’t the EU protect freedom of the press in member states? | DW Analysis” – below is their description.
Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia killed by a car bomb in Malta. Reporter Ján Kuciak shot dead in Slovakia. Veteran crime journalist Giorgos Karaivaz assassinated outside his house in Greece.
These crimes didn’t occur in shaky democracies or rundown dictatorships; they happened in the European Union.
While Europe as a whole remains relatively safe, risks for journalists are mounting in many EU countries. Reporters on the streets of well-established democracies like Germany or the Netherlands risk physical attacks from members of the public, and they can be virtually under siege on social media.
Many European countries do a lot to protect journalists, and most at least pay lip service to the value of free media. But in some countries, press freedom is under blatant attack and individual reporters are being threatened, by EU governments no less. Repressive laws, commercial takeovers and financial regulations all have a broader impact than harassing individual journalists.
And yet the European Union does next to nothing. EU institutions regulate many aspects of life for the bloc’s 450 million inhabitants – why can’t they figure out something as important as freedom of the press? Why can’t the EU get its own members to stick to shared values of media freedom? And how does this affect democracy?
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The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. Its members have a combined area of 4,233,255.3 km² and an estimated total population of about 447 million.
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe. It lies between the Baltic and North seas to the north, and the Alps to the south.
Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor. With over 83 million inhabitants of its 16 constituent states, it is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city is Berlin, and its financial centre is Frankfurt; the largest urban area is the Ruhr.
Greece is a country in southeastern Europe with thousands of islands throughout the Aegean and Ionian seas. Influential in ancient times, it’s often called the cradle of Western civilization. Athens, its capital, retains landmarks including the 5th-century B.C. Acropolis citadel with the Parthenon temple. Greece is also known for its beaches, from the black sands of Santorini to the party resorts of Mykonos.
Malta, officially known as the Republic of Malta and formerly Melita, is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital is Valletta. The official and national language is Maltese, which is descended from Sicilian Arabic that developed during the Emirate of Sicily, while English serves as the second official language. Italian and Sicilian also previously served as official and cultural languages.
Malta has been inhabited since approximately 5900 BC. Its location in the centre of the Mediterranean has historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base.
Malta became a British colony in 1813, and the British Parliament passed the Malta Independence Act in 1964, giving Malta independence from the United Kingdom as the State of Malta, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and queen. The country became a republic in 1974. It has been a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations since independence, and joined the European Union in 2004; it became part of the eurozone monetary union in 2008.
Catholicism is the state religion, but the Constitution of Malta guarantees freedom of conscience and religious worship.
The Netherlands, informally Holland, is a country primarily located in Western Europe and partly in the Caribbean, forming the largest constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In Europe, it consists of 12 provinces that border Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with those countries and the United Kingdom. In the Caribbean, it consists of three special municipalities: the islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba. The country’s official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland, and English and Papiamentu as secondary official languages in the Caribbean Netherlands. Dutch Low Saxon and Limburgish are recognised regional languages (spoken in the east and southeast respectively), while Sinte Romani and Yiddish are recognised non-territorial languages.
Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the southwest, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia’s territory spans about 49,000 square kilometres and is mostly mountainous.
