Greece and other EU governments plan to conduct a “blank check” of spying on journalists

EU governments want to allow state surveillance of journalists and their interlocutors, including the use of spyware, if security authorities deem it necessary in the name of national security. This comes from documents from ongoing negotiations in the European Union for a European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), obtained by Investigative Europe (which also includes United Reporters) netzpolitik.org και Follow the money.

The European Union’s media law, proposed by the European Commission last September, aims to protect journalists and the media from political control by governments and owners. These clearly threaten freedom of expression and media pluralism in many EU countries, notably in Poland and Hungary but also elsewhere, experts like the authors of the annual Media Pluralism Monitor at the European University Institute in Florence have warned for years.

It is essential to critical and independent journalism that journalists be able to protect themselves and their sources from surveillance, including by state authorities. This is why Article 4 of the EU bill expressly prohibits coercive measures against journalists to reveal their sources, as well as the monitoring of their communications and the use of spyware on their computers and phones.

But at the Council of the European Union, where representatives of the EU’s 27 governments negotiate behind closed doors, the French government called for Article 4 to be scrapped, according to achieved in Europe. Paris argues that spying on journalists and using spyware against them should indeed be allowed – if justified by “national security”.

Two years ago, a joint investigation by media outlets including the Guardian, Le Monde and The Washington Post showed how government actors in several countries had used Pegasus spyware against civilians, including journalists in Hungary and elsewhere. In Greece, it emerged last year that several journalists were targeted by the Predator spyware, while in Spain, the authorities allegedly used spyware against journalists reporting on the Catalan independence movement.

In response to these revelations, the European Parliament created a commission of inquiry on the matter and called for a ban on the sale of spyware until the law clearly defines the exceptional cases in which a member state can use it.

But EU governments seem to care little about Parliament’s concerns, Europe Investigates notes, revealing that the governments of Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg and Greece have all explicitly supported France’s request for a national security exemption. From Article 4, according to the German diplomatic report of the relevant Council working group, on April 17. No other EU government representative objected. Therefore, the Swedish government, which currently holds the presidency of the council, added a paragraph to the latest version of the bill stating that Article 4 “does not affect the responsibility of member states to protect national security.”

When asked about her reasons for supporting this controversial clause, a spokeswoman for Germany’s Minister of Culture and Information, Claudia Roth, explained that the sole aim was to ensure “the competencies of member states in the field of national security, as defined by the EUE treaty, are not affected.”

But the European Federation of Journalists argues that this is misleading. Unlike EU treaties, the agency says, “the Council’s current proposal does not contain provisions for the protection of fundamental rights.”

Roth’s spokesman added that the German government would seek in future negotiations to protect media diversity. “It is also in our interests to ensure that this does not create a gateway to undue restrictions.”

A spokesperson for the Dutch government did not explain why they supported the exemption, but stressed that national security is a purely national matter and that the Dutch legal framework is strong in this regard. The French government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“My case shows how easily national security can be used as a pretext to threaten journalists and their sources,” says Thanassis Koukakis, one of the Predator victims in Greece. He says that if the EU did indeed pass a law “legitimizing such actions without external scrutiny and public scrutiny, it would be very disappointing”. “This will not be the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights for Europe.”

Sophie Edveldt, the Dutch liberal MEP, who led the European Parliament’s investigation into Pegasus and other spyware, called recent changes by EU governments to the European Media Freedom Bill a “catastrophe”. The concept of national security acts as a “blank check” when in fact a “clear legal framework” is needed.

However, the general exception is what is on the table for EU governments next week, when they plan to adopt the Council’s position in principle on EMFA, the publication notes. However, the final EU law will need the green light from both the Council and Parliament.