Brussels supports journalism and press freedom with 20.5 million

A Today, the European Commission has made EUR 20.5 million available to support journalism and media, with funds planned to encourage cross-border collaboration or to strengthen a mechanism that assesses violations of press freedom.

In a statement, the Commission states that these funds will be distributed through three programmes: the first, with EUR 14 million, aims to finance “partnerships in the field of journalism, promoting collaboration between the media and the work of local media and public interest”.

“ This invitation includes two aspects: the first, dedicated to pluralism, is aimed at organisations capable of creating and distributing funds to media entities in areas of particular relevance to democracy,” the executive said.

The second part of this project aims to “support cross-border collaboration proposals between media organizations, focused on innovative business models and journalistic projects across Europe.”.

Another of the programmes that will be funded with EUR 3.5 million from the package announced today aims to strengthen citizens’ skills in media literacy, “allowing them to navigate the information space safely and confidently and contributing to society’s resilience to misinformation and manipulation”.

Finally, the European Commission will also make available EUR 3 million more to “strengthen an independent rapid response mechanism at European level to monitor violations of freedom of the press and the media in the European Union (EU) as well as in the candidate countries”.

“ This monitoring will contribute to the production of more robust data and analyses on threats to media pluralism and the security of journalists, as well as the preparation of the annual report on the rule of law,” the European Commission says.

The European Commission notes that these three programmes will be open for applications by 22 October.