Public broadcasters in Europe are facing growing political pressures from right-wing populists, media group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) warned on Monday, while proposing taxing internet companies and platforms to help fund them.
"US President Donald Trump's decision to dismantle his country's international broadcasting service echoes the offensive being waged by certain political forces against public radio and television broadcasters across Europe," RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin wrote in the introduction to a report on public broadcasters.
"The takeover, defunding and closure of these media outlets are increasingly common components of the political programmes of those who seek to emulate Trump's policies," he warned.
Public broadcasters are in some cases being turned into "government mouthpieces", RSF said, citing Italy as an example under far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has transformed public media into "propoganda tools for the Kremlin", RSF said, while the 2024 restructuring of Slovakia's public broadcaster by Robert Fico's nationalist, Kremlin-friendly government was also a cause for concern.
RSF, a Paris-based charity, welcomed the entry into force on August 8 of a key article of the EU's Media Freedom Act, which will require member states to safeguard the editorial independence and funding of public service media.
The group issued a dozen recommendations for strengthening public broadcasters and reversing the trend of falling confidence in them.
These include strong guarantees of independence in the appointment of media executives, and the creation of a European-level funding system supported by a tax imposed by member states on digital platforms such as social media networks and search engines.
This levy could be combined with a "universal and progressive licence fee", the report suggested.
While condemning the "disastrous decision" by Trump to axe funding for international US public broadcasters such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, RSF suggested that Europe should step into the void.
It recommended the creation of a European international broadcasting service that could help preserve the newsrooms of US-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in collaboration with international French, German and other public broadcasters.
