European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered the EU’s annual state of the union address on Wednesday, calling for the robust defense of European values and warning of the dangers of cognitive warfare, foreign propaganda, and disinformation powered by viral deepfakes.
Shaped by social media algorithms and surging AI, the integrity of Europe’s information space has become a core security and economic concern as foreign adversaries and extremists seek to paralyze democracies. Von der Leyen promised to respond by toughening sanctions enforcement and putting more funds towards promoting the rule of law.
Europe is right to treat these issues as a high-stakes, generation-defining challenge. But there was a key omission in her speech: Independent journalism is a precondition for democratic resilience, and supporting it must remain a priority for the EU. Journalism exposes the inner workings of the threats facing our institutions, and populates our public spaces with reliable, factual, nuanced information. It is the most durable answer Europe has to the disinformation and foreign interference the President warned against. Only an informed public can make free choices.
While media freedom is folded into the EU’s broader Democracy Shield and rule of law frameworks, journalism lacks protection as the distinct, load-bearing pillar of democratic resilience that it is. In the face of rising attacks, Europe needs more explicit prioritization of financial support and protections for journalists.
It’s not hard to find real-world examples of why this is so important. OCCRP’s cross-border reporting often generates valuable findings for over-stretched enforcement agencies that struggle to work across borders. Our recent investigations have exposed scam networks with tens of thousands of European victims, and revealed cognitive warfare operations deployed by the Kremlin in European capitals. We have also helped identify war criminals torturing Ukrainian prisoners, and mapped the trade routes through which European materials continue to strengthen the Russian war machine. We don’t have numbers for the whole industry, but our reporting alone has triggered 477 government investigations and 842 arrests or indictments since 2009.
President von der Leyen rightly lauded the recent Hungarian elections as a sign of hope. In that contest, Hungarians reacted in part to the long record of corruption racked up by Viktor Orban and his cronies. How did they know about that? In large part thanks to the intrepid reporting of independent journalists, including OCCRP partners Direkt36 and Átlátszó. In Lithuania, investigative reporting led to a powerful demonstration of democratic accountability this year, with a prime minister stepping down amid an integrity scandal. In the EU’s neighbors, the students who mobilized nationwide protests in Serbia were also empowered by journalists’ findings, while journalists in Ukraine have held the government to account and prompted it to act on corruption allegations.
We know that the European Commission values journalism, as evidenced by initiatives like the European Media Freedom Act and enhanced anti-SLAPP rules.
But its support must outpace the rising threats in their physical, legal, digital and reputational forms. OCCRP alone faces 80+ lawsuits, and is fending off unprecedented DDoS attacks on its web infrastructure and AI-enabled takedown requests by PR firms hired by wealthy targets of our reporting. Our partners in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan face false charges and prison terms. Within EU institutions and beyond, extremist groups are villainizing the media, leading to smear attacks and online hate. The recent verdict in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder trial in Malta is a grim reminder of the pushback journalists can face when they report on politicians, crime bosses, tech oligarchs, and other power brokers.
Funding, meanwhile, is in short supply. Last year, President von der Leyen called for stepping up where others have stepped back. The funding crisis is especially urgent for nonprofit media. OCCRP and our network of 40+ European news outlets have been badly affected by the changing landscape in media funding, including the loss of an estimated $1.7 billion in U.S. funding for freedom-of-expression programs. While the EU funds journalism through several channels, what outlets still lack is sustained support for reporting on big, complex threats to democracy.
Now is the time for the EU to take a stand: prioritize journalism as a pillar of democratic resilience; bolster multi-year support for investigative reporting; and fortify the conditions in which these journalists work.
Journalists have proven their ability to counter the leading threats to Europe’s security. Their role in achieving President von der Leyen’s “strong and independent Europe” is more than symbolic. You cannot win a battle of narratives when the infrastructure that provides citizens with reliable information is crumbling beneath your feet.
