The Irish Presidency has proposed a 30% cut to AgoraEU, the largest single cut in its draft budget. The saving amounts to just 0.2% of the EU budget. The damage to Europe’s democratic resilience would be far greater, and much of it could not be undone.
AgoraEU funds journalism, media, culture and civil society. For journalism, the timing could hardly be worse. News media are under financial pressure in almost every EU member state, and news deserts are spreading. At the same time, the European Parliament’s co-rapporteurs propose allocating only 11.7% of AgoraEU to journalism. If both proposals are adopted, EU support for journalism will remain frozen at today’s level and lose value year after year as prices rise.
Since 2009, Journalismfund Europe has supported journalists working together across borders to investigate issues that no single newsroom or country can cover alone. That work depends on stable, long-term public and private funding.
In the interest of transparency: Journalismfund Europe receives funding from Creative Europe, one of the programmes that AgoraEU is set to succeed. We therefore have a direct stake in this decision, and we say so openly. But our concern goes well beyond our own organisation. Independent journalism is not a luxury to be trimmed when budgets are tight; it is part of the infrastructure that allows citizens to hold power to account and to make informed decisions.
We call on the Member States to:
- maintain AgoraEU at least at the level proposed by the European Commission (€8.58 billion in current prices), and move towards the increase proposed by the European Parliament;
- ensure that journalism receives a fair and sufficient share of the programme, rather than a share that erodes its real value over the 2028–2034 period.
Read the full open letter: europeanjournalists.org
