The European Media Freedom Act reaches a milestone this month, one year after most of its provisions began to apply on 8 August 2025. The landmark law promised stronger protection for journalists and public broadcasters, yet the anniversary finds enforcement lagging behind ambition. Watchdogs warn that media freedom on paper is not the same as media freedom in practice.
The act set common standards where none existed. It shields journalists from pressure to reveal sources, guarantees editorial independence and stable funding for public service media, limits the power of very large platforms to remove press content without warning, and created a new European Board for Media Services to coordinate national regulators. Supporters hailed it as the first EU-wide framework of its kind.
Reality has proved messier. The Commission’s 2026 Rule of Law Report, published in July, recorded uneven progress on media pluralism, with some governments strengthening the independent financing of public broadcasters while others dragged their feet. The report tracks the justice system, anti-corruption work, and media freedom across all 27 member states.
Enforcement is the recurring worry. Press-freedom groups say several capitals are unprepared, or quietly resisting, and that regulators and the Commission must show they will act when rules are broken. They point to persistent problems: intimidation of reporters, opaque state advertising that rewards friendly outlets, and abusive lawsuits designed to silence critical journalism.
Those abusive suits, known as SLAPPs, remain a live front. The European Media Freedom Act works alongside a separate anti-SLAPP directive and an updated recommendation on journalist safety, but campaigners argue the tools only matter if national courts and authorities use them. Progress, they note, still varies sharply from one country to the next.
Concentrated ownership adds another strain. In several markets a handful of proprietors, sometimes with political ties, control large shares of the audience, and transparency rules on who owns what are unevenly applied. The act asks member states to guard against opaque takeovers that threaten plurality, yet leaves much of the detail to national implementation.
Public broadcasters feel the pressure most directly. The law demands that their funding be adequate and insulated from political interference, a standard that clashes with governments accustomed to using state media as a mouthpiece. How regulators police that boundary will show whether the act can change behaviour or merely describe good intentions.
The coming year will test whether the framework has teeth. The European Board for Media Services must prove it can move beyond coordination to genuine pressure, and the Commission faces calls to open cases where safeguards are ignored. One year in, the law’s promise is clear; its delivery is not yet.
