Press Freedom Index

Reporters Without Borders' 2022 World Press Freedom Index, published on Tuesday, says that over the past year there has been a large increase in "polarisation amplified by information chaos" - a phenomenon that has also affected the troubled media environment in the Balkans.

European media in general has been facing a dual threat for over a decade. On one side there are the illiberal governments, especially in Central and Southeast Europe, using increasingly sophisticated means to defenestrate the independent media, while on the other side are the tech giants eating into the traditional media's business.

Photo: Unsplash/Matt Chesin

EU Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton said the purpose of the Act "will be to ensure the integrity and independence" of the EU media market.

Paris – The NGO Reporters without Borders (RSF) has urged authorities in Slovenia and the Czech Republic to stop exerting political pressure on public media, and to safeguard their independence in line with Council of Europe (CoE) recommendations from 2012.

The decline in media freedom in the Balkans is eroding the European values of democracy and rule of law and creating a climate ripe for disinformation that is cultivating anti-EU and anti-Western sentiment across the region, writes Peter Horrocks.