Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called organizers and participants in the coming European Union – Western Balkans summit to make support for investigative journalism a priority in their discussions.

“RSF calls for support for investigative journalism to be a leading topic at the summit that the EU’s Slovenian presidency is organising with the Western Balkans, where journalists who investigate major stories such as corruption and the Covid-19 pandemic are threatened by a lack of judicial independence and must compete with disinformation,” a press release said adding that the issue is not on the agenda of the October 6 summit.
It warned that the countries of the Western Balkans – Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – have not made any significant progress as regards freedom of the media. “All of them saw their scores worsen in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index except Bosnia, which registered a very small improvement,” it said.

“Press freedom should not be a taboo subject at the EU-Balkans summit,” it quoted Pavol Szalai, the head of RSF’s EU/Balkans desk, as saying. “Support for investigative and professional journalism in the Balkans is an essential remedy to help the region combat two of its leading problems – corruption and the Covid-19 pandemic. The EU should undoubtedly be more ambitious in its use of the seduction it exerts over the Western Balkans in order to enable the region’s citizens to have access to more reliable news and information,” he said.

RSF warned that violence against journalists enjoys a disturbing level of impunity in the Western Balkans, adding that disinformation flourishes in the region including in mainstream media and singled out the tabloid press which passes on COVID-19 conspiracy theories about the pandemic. It said that independent media which are critical of the authorities and whose reporting is reliable are often discriminated and targetted. It said that Slovenian prime minister Janez Jansa often attacks journalists while his government, the organiser of this EU-Balkans summit, has arbitrarily suspended funding for the national news agency STA.