The European Commission's new guidelines to support media freedom and integrity in the EU Enlargement countries point towards politically and financially independent public service media (PSM) as an enabling factor for freedom of expression.

The guidelines clearly identify the need to help public broadcasters implement comprehensive reform strategies to emancipate them from financial and political control by governments, crystallising a recent trend at the EU level which increasingly values the crucial role of PSM organisations in strengthening fragile democracies in countries aspiring to join the EU.

This concrete step forward taken by the European Commission formalises EU Commissioner Stefan Füle’s declaration in June last year that the EU would focus on public service broadcasting as the "second pillar" of its future approach to countries aspiring to join the European Union.

It also echoes several Resolutions adopted by the European Parliament between December 2013 and March 2014. The EU’s elected representatives have consistently underlined the importance of sustainable and independent PSM when evaluating the Western Balkan countries’ and Turkey’s progress towards EU accession, which hinges upon respect for human rights and well-established democracy. 

In the seven respective resolutions adopted in the European Parliament Plenary (Albania, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYR of Macedonia , Montenegro and Turkey), Members of the European Parliament called on the governments of the accession countries to ensure institutional and political independence of PSM and to secure their funding. EU Enlargement countries are urged to implement comprehensive strategies to ensure the independence and sustainability of public service media in compliance with European standards.

Furthermore, the European Parliament’s Resolutions also link the existence of sustainable PSM organisations with transparency of media ownership, a safe working environment for journalists and an appropriate use of public funds.

Via its Partnership Programme, the EBU has been implementing, with the financial backing of the EU, a series of activities to assist PSM in the EU accession countries in becoming more independent, accountable and diverse. The EBU will also pursue activities in the EU neighbourhood region, where difficulties faced by public broadcasters were recently made all too apparent in Ukraine with the appalling attack on the head its public broadcaster.  

The EBU therefore strongly welcomes the signs of encouragement given by the European Commission and the European Parliament, in times where public service media organisations can come under threat, even within the borders of the EU. The sudden closure of Greek public broadcaster ERT last year is there to remind all that established institutions can disappear overnight in more than questionable circumstances. But it also raises another question: if countries aspiring to join the EU are required to have sustainable and independent PSM, shouldn’t the same apply to countries which are already part of the EU?