EFJ concerned with media ownership structure in Eastern Europe 

The report, "Eastern Empires: Foreign Ownership in Central and Eastern European Media", released on 25 June 2003 by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the regional group of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), illustrates the extent of foreign media ownership in the EU accession countries.

The report also shows that in the years since the fall of the Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, the encroachment of Western media conglomerates into these countries has prevented, or at least hampered, the growth of independent nationally-based media groups. This raises the crucial question of whether media systems in these countries can become representative of public interests and civil concerns when key decisions about investment and even editorial attitudes towards political issues may be decided elsewhere, according to the report.

"It is clear that national media are being snatched out of local hands to feed the appetite of expanding transnational conglomerates, and the consequences are devastating for local independent groups," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. "If Europe’s media is to have a future even remotely connected to its traditional role as a watchdog over the exercise of political and corporate power and as a provider of quality information in the public interest, the issue of media concentration must be on the European agenda," underlined White.

The report is also critical towards the condition of the media in the present EU: "Media power either distorts the democratic process, or political power seeks to curtail the independence of the media, in the United Kingdom through the power of Rupert Murdoch's News International; in Italy through Silvio Berlusconi's media group, Mediaset and, as Prime Minister, his interference in the public service broadcaster, RAI; and in Spain where the conservative Prime Minister, José Maria Aznar, has too much media power and misuses it."

The EFJ urges the Central and Eastern European countries where foreign ownership is allowed to oblige transnational media enterprises to:

• disclose the full extent of their holdings;
• respect rights of employees and to engage in a social dialogue;
• establish European Works Councils in line with the EU Directive;
• respect media pluralism and to divest media properties where there are unacceptable levels of concentration;
• respect cultural and national particularities.