How to Defend Media Freedom in Eastern and Southeastern Europe?

The 14th Frankfurt Days on Media Law, organized by the Europa Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) on February 2-3 focused on what measures can be taken to defend media freedom in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, since the current state of press freedom in the countries of these regions tends to go under the radar. While the ruthless repression of media in Turkey is dominating the headlines, ongoing state intervention to curbing media freedom and free access to information in Greece, Poland and Hungary among others, often escapes focus.

The two-day conference included several panel discussions on the above mentioned countries’ challenges to media freedom, focusing on their similarities and also on individual country issues and concerns. The second day of the conference began with the panel discussion on Hungary, entitled “Hungary: A country without the fourth power? –The failure of the EU and its learning value”. Panel speakers included Eva Bognar, senior program officer and researcher at CMDS, former resident CMDS fellow Péter Nádori on behalf of The Hungarian Publishers’ Association, Krisztina Nagy from the Institute of Law of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Dr. Gábor Polyák, professor at the University of Pécs. The discussion was moderated by Franka Kühn, political scientist and vice spokeswoman for the Federal Association of Consumer Advice Center.