EU lags behind on legislation that protects investigative journalism – David Casa

Intervening during a meeting of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs in Strasbourg, MEP David Casa reiterated his call on Commissioner Timmermans to propose EU legislation that would counter abusive SLAPP practices. “The use of these practices constitute a serious threat to media freedom and should be addressed at EU level.”

The Nationalist Party’s head of delegation in the European Parliament pointed out that he had written to the Commission on a number of occasions, in order to call for these practices to be addressed. “It is unacceptable that we allow companies with unlimited resources to bully and intimidate independent media with vexatious lawsuits in jurisdictions outside the European Union.”

Pilatus Bank – accused of laundering money for the Maltese prime minister’s chief of staff – succeeded in concealing truth and effectively re-writing history by threatening multi-million dollar lawsuits in the US – a jurisdiction that has no nexus to any of the parties, he said. A case was filed in Arizona against Daphne Caruana Galizia.

“In the EU we should be pioneers in enacting legislation that protects investigative journalism. Instead we are lagging behind. We should no longer be complacent on this issue,” stated MEP Casa.

MEP Casa welcomed the announcement made by Vice President Timmermans that the Commission was actively pursuing the issue and assessing how such legislation can be introduced.