* EFJ Manifesto for 2024 EU elections
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) launched its Manifesto ahead of the 2024 EU Elections. With the motto “Stand up for journalism as a public good”, the EFJ and its affiliates aim to raise awareness about the need for a strong European Union, committed to working for trade union and human rights, the rule of law, media freedom and media pluralism.
“The EFJ is calling upon future EU policymakers to stand up for journalism and journalists in Europe,” said EFJ President Maja Sever. “In the past years, the EU has done more than ever to create a safer and more sustainable space for journalism as a public good by protecting the profession with new regulations and by funding many journalism-related projects. But independent professional journalism is expensive, it needs more support from public authorities, as we simply can’t leave it to the market alone.”
The next policymakers will also oversee the implementation of crucial regulatory mechanisms accomplished in the last five years: the Copyright directive, the Digital Services Act, the Artificial Intelligence Act, the Anti-SLAPP directive and the European Media Freedom Act.
In the run-up to the June European Parliament elections, the EFJ has set out an agenda with three action points to make journalism viable, safe and to regulate AI.
Foster viable journalism
- Invest massively: public transparent funding at arms’ length, philanthropic funding etc;
- Guarantee independence and sustainable funding for public service media;
- Tax Big Tech: guaranteed remuneration by platforms for journalistic content published;
- Ensure fair remuneration and authors rights for (freelance) journalists;
- Allocate a permanent EU budget to independent journalism projects, media literacy, monitoring of violations and other assistance.
Promote safety of journalists
- Enable a safe environment for journalists to protect them from physical and online violence, in particular women and groups that are marginalised;
- Stop impunity;
- Recognise and prevent abusive legal proceedings intended to silence journalists;
- Stop the unlawful deployment of spyware against journalists.
Regulate Generative Artificial Intelligence
- Maximise transparency on training data and artificially generated content;
- Enforce mandatory remuneration of authors for AI-generated content using journalistic work;
- Encourage development of guidelines for responsible use and development of journalistic AI;
- Ensure that AI is an integral part of journalists’ and media workers’ training also in light of preventing any misuse of generative AI to create mis- and disinformation.
