August 9, 2026

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The European Post

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August 9, 2026

Newsletter

The European Post

Policy • Diplomacy • Strategic Insight

LATEST
Japan Becomes Europe’s Closest Security Partner in AsiaCan Europe’s New Zealand Deal Anchor It in the Pacific?Chip Research Binds Europe and South Korea CloserMinimum Prices Replace Tariffs in Europe’s China Car DealBrussels and Beijing Keep Talking While the Trade Gap WidensKorean Weapons and EU Loans Now Bankroll Europe’s RearmamentNew EU Gas Market Rules Take Effect With Consumer SafeguardsDeforestation Regulation Holds Its December Deadline Despite CutsDigital Omnibus Delays Europe’s High-Risk AI Deadline to 2027Europe’s Schools Confront a Widening Basic Skills GapRule of Law Report Finds Progress but Trust Still LagsIRIS2 Gains 66 Satellites as Brussels Signs the Rollout DealNature Restoration Plans Come Due as Member States Race a DeadlineECB Rates Hold at 2.25 Percent as Frankfurt Waits on the DataEU Budget Talks Turn to Cohesion as Ireland Takes OverWildfire Response Stretches Europe’s Emergency Fleet ThinCan Europe’s Quantum Plan Match Its Big Ambitions?Armenia Edges West as Moscow’s Grip Slips AwayEurope Inherits the World’s Aid Bill It Cannot Fully PayAir Passenger Rights Get Their First Overhaul in Two DecadesJapan Becomes Europe’s Closest Security Partner in AsiaCan Europe’s New Zealand Deal Anchor It in the Pacific?Chip Research Binds Europe and South Korea CloserMinimum Prices Replace Tariffs in Europe’s China Car DealBrussels and Beijing Keep Talking While the Trade Gap WidensKorean Weapons and EU Loans Now Bankroll Europe’s RearmamentNew EU Gas Market Rules Take Effect With Consumer SafeguardsDeforestation Regulation Holds Its December Deadline Despite CutsDigital Omnibus Delays Europe’s High-Risk AI Deadline to 2027Europe’s Schools Confront a Widening Basic Skills GapRule of Law Report Finds Progress but Trust Still LagsIRIS2 Gains 66 Satellites as Brussels Signs the Rollout DealNature Restoration Plans Come Due as Member States Race a DeadlineECB Rates Hold at 2.25 Percent as Frankfurt Waits on the DataEU Budget Talks Turn to Cohesion as Ireland Takes OverWildfire Response Stretches Europe’s Emergency Fleet ThinCan Europe’s Quantum Plan Match Its Big Ambitions?Armenia Edges West as Moscow’s Grip Slips AwayEurope Inherits the World’s Aid Bill It Cannot Fully PayAir Passenger Rights Get Their First Overhaul in Two Decades

Few Capitals Cross The Line As Anti-SLAPP Transposition Date Passes

Rúnar Guðmundsson
Regulatory Monitor, Taxation

Sofia: The 7 May transposition deadline for the directive on strategic lawsuits against public participation has come and gone, and across the Union the implementation map looks patchier than the European Federation of Journalists or the Commission had hoped. Only two member states are formally classified as having partially transposed the directive. France and Malta have laws on the books that cover the core elements, including the early dismissal mechanism and the cost shifting rule that the directive requires.

A larger group of capitals has draft legislation in motion. Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands all have parliamentary proposals at varying stages of advancement. The Belgian draft is the most often cited as going beyond the directive’s minimum, extending procedural safeguards to domestic cases that fall outside the cross-border scope and introducing express sanctions against abusive claimants. Germany’s draft mirrors directive language closely but leaves several procedural questions to the länder. The Dutch proposal incorporates the directive into the code of civil procedure rather than as a stand-alone instrument.

Bulgarian civil society organisations have been pressing the Justice Ministry for an explicit timeline. The country is among those classified as having not started the transposition process, joined by Italy and Hungary. Sofia argues that existing abuse-of-process provisions in the Code of Civil Procedure already cover much of the directive’s substance, a position the Commission has not accepted in its informal communications with capitals.

The Commission’s directorate-general for Justice is now preparing the first round of letters of formal notice. Officials say the timing is deliberate, with the first batch likely to go out before the summer break so that capitals have a concrete legal demand to focus minds. The infringement procedure can take the better part of two years before a non-transposition case reaches the Court, but the political signal is what matters in the short term. The Rule of Law report due in July will also cover the SLAPP file as part of the media pluralism chapter.

Substantively, the directive imposes obligations that touch civil procedure, private international law and limitation periods in ways that several capitals say do not fit cleanly into national legal tradition. The early dismissal mechanism must allow defendants to apply for the dismissal of manifestly unfounded claims and shift the burden of proof so that claimants must show their case is not manifestly unfounded. Several national procedural codes do not have a clear equivalent and require either bespoke provisions or careful adaptation of summary judgment procedures.

The third-country dimension also produces drafting headaches. Article 17 of the directive requires member states to ensure that a SLAPP filed outside the Union against a public participant domiciled in the EU does not produce effects in the domestic legal order, including refusal of recognition of foreign judgments. Implementation requires either amendments to the rules on recognition of foreign judgments or new dedicated provisions, and the choice is not procedurally neutral.

Reporters Sans Frontières and the Media Freedom Rapid Response have both pushed for the Commission to publish a transposition tracker that goes beyond the standard letters of formal notice published on EUR-Lex. A dedicated portal is in preparation, drawing on the work of the European Anti-SLAPP Monitor, which has been documenting national progress against the directive’s twelve key articles since 2024.

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