Today, the EBU, as a partner of the Council of Europe’s Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists, joins the launch of the platform’s 2024 annual report.

Released under the title “Press Freedom in Europe: Time to turn the Tide”, the report assesses the major issues undermining press freedom – including threats and intimidations, detention, restrictive legislation, abusive lawsuits, media capture and attack on public service media - and issues recommendations to address them.

In 2023, the platform partners published 285 alerts on serious threats or attacks to media freedom in Europe compared to 289 alerts in 2022. Although in 2023 the number of journalists killed and street violence against them decreased, the alerts on the platform show a growing diversity of threats, pressure and constraints under which journalists must do their work.

The report underscores that media freedom and the digital security of journalists continued to be threatened by the ongoing use of spyware technology to surveil journalists and media actors, and accountability for reported abuses continued to be evasive.

Read the report

The Council of Europe’s Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists was set up by the Council of Europe in 2015, in co-operation with prominent international NGOs active in the field of the freedom of expression and associations of journalists, to provide information which may serve as a basis for dialogue with member states about possible protective or remedial action.

The 15 partners are the European Federation of Journalists, the International Federation of Journalists, the Association of European Journalists, Article 19, Reporters without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Index on Censorship, the International Press Institute, the International News Safety Institute, Rory Peck Trust, the European Broadcasting Union, PEN International, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, Free Press Unlimited and the Justice for Journalists Foundation.