The first “Future Media Lounge” was held in the European Parliament on 7 October 2014. The session, titled “The EU and Media Freedom: a force for good or bad?”, brought together roughly 45 European politicians, representatives from Europe’s media sector and other stakeholders for an informal debate on how the EU impacts media freedom across Europe.

While the institutions of the European Union support and cherish freedom of expression, there are possible negative impacts that some EU legislation can have on press freedom in Europe. Well-intentioned draft laws on data protection, copyright, net neutrality, and also competition law risk directly or indirectly infringing press freedom, thereby undermining media diversity in Europe. This event offered an opportunity to understand more about how media content is accessed today by citizens, and what the impact these trends could have on the legislative and media environments.

The event was hosted by Andrew Lewer, MBE MEP, and featured presentations by Xavier Bouckaert, COO of Roularta Media Group; Dr. Christoph Fiedler, Managing Director, European Affairs and Media Policy; Nic Newman, Author of the Reuter’s Institute’s Digital News Report 2014; and Robert Madelin, Director General of DG CONNECT, European Commission. The debate was moderated by David Earnshaw, President and Senior Advisor, Burson-Marsteller Brussels.

Please click here to see a pdf of the speaker biographies.

Please click here to get a pdf of the slides Nic Newman used for his presentation. The presentation is based off of the Digital News Report 2014, which is available online here.

Please click here to see a pdf of the participants list.

All photos were taken by Karin Fleming.