Euronews changes owners, raising concerns over editorial policies

JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK / AFP

The Politico portal reported that Euronews had been acquired by a Portuguese venture-capital firm that has a close family tie to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and strong corporate links to the business ecosystem around him, raising concerns in Serbia over the editorial policies of the news organization’s local branch.

Politico said that Alpac Capital (a fund manager) announced the purchase of 88 percent of the shares in Euronews from Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris. It quoted Euronews sources who said that there is no risk to the news organization’s editorial independence following the announced acquisition by Alpac Capital. Euronews CEO Michael Peters told Politico that he has “every guarantee of editorial independence”.

“Alpac Capital’s links to Hungary have become such a hot topic of discussion that even Orbán himself weighed into the fray, playing down any suggestion of political interference in the multilingual broadcaster and quipping that his Fidesz party had no plans to forge a world empire,” Politico said. Alpac Capital has an office in Budapest and has received funding in the past from Hungary’s official export credit agency, EXIM, the Hungarian energy company MOL and Hungary’s OTP Bank and has collaborated with 4iG, a Hungarian technology company closely associated with the ruling Fidesz party:

The change of ownership has raised concerns about the editorial independence of the Euronews branch in Serbia because of ties between Orban and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

A journalist with the Serbian Raskrinkavanje investigative news portal told N1 that Euronews Serbia claims that there will be no change in editorial policy. Raskrinkavanje staffer Marija Vucic also recalled that Euronews partnered with the state owned Telekom Serbia to open its local news outlet which is only available via Telekom owned or controlled cable providers. According to some sources, Euronews Serbia was set up to rival N1.

Euronews Serbia editor Bojan Brkic told the BIRN portal that the channel’s editorial policy in Serbia could change in theory only if the editorial policies changed at Euronews headquarters in Lyon which, he added, “will not happen”.

According to leaked Telekom Serbia documents, the state-owned telecommunications firm wants to take over the cable services market in Serbia and wants to eliminate SBB as its competition. Telekom has partnered with the local Telenor mobile services provider to take over a larger share of that market.