Sweden waters down EU press-freedom law

Their new bill is to give judges special powers to throw out "manifestly unfounded" cases, which amounted to "strategic lawsuits against public participation [SLAPPs]", among other measures.

They informally call it 'Daphne's Law' after the late Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed by a car bomb in 2017, in a sign of its importance.

And EU diplomats will discuss it on 15 March in behind-closed-doors talks in Brussels, amid hope for a general agreement by June 2023, and for the law to enter into life by 2026.

But for its part, the Swedish EU presidency has already cut "key" elements in the hope of getting the 27 member states on board, prompting the press-freedom outcry.

Sweden has removed special provisions on cross-border cases and watered down language on early dismissal of cases, according to its "compromise proposal", seen by EUobserver and shared with advocacy groups.

"'Daphne's Law' must cover cross-border cases and include effective anti-SLAPP protection measures, including stay of proceedings and early dismissal of SLAPPs, compensation for defendants' damages, and penalties for SLAPP claimants," the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation in Valletta told EUobserver.

"Removing or weakening these measures and eliminating the clauses on cross-border cases defeats the directive's purpose," it added.

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said: "It is essential that the directive applies to as many cases as possible. To this end, the concept of cases with a cross-border impact proposed by the [EU] Commission is key".

"It makes it possible to ... encompass, for example, the case of pollution of a river that crosses several European countries," the group's Julie Majerczak said.

The Swedish changes mean "powerful individuals and corporations will still be able to sue journalists in multiple jurisdictions, putting them in an impossible situation to defend their work," Flutura Kusari, from the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) in Leipzig, Germany, also said.

Tom Gibson, from the New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists, added: "The rise of SLAPPs in Europe has drawn attention to just how much pressure is being applied by the rich and powerful on critical voices".

"This compromised text means that the EU member states want to dumb down, not strengthen, the law," he said.

The problem is so acute in Malta that "literally before we were able to bury what was left of my dead mother [in 2017], we were back in court fighting one of the 40 or more lawsuits against her," Daphne Caruana Galizia's son, Matthew Caruana Galizia, told an anti-SLAPP conference in Strasbourg last October.

"Today, the former prime minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, is still suing my dead mother. It's a surreal situation. It shocks me every time I say it," he said at the time.

Moral drain

Big newspapers such as Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland, as well as student publishers in Germany, and environmental activists in France, have also been among recent victims of vexatious lawsuits.

Legal papers arrived by the crate-load in Gazeta Wyborcza's office on some days, amid more than 100 legal attacks by the ruling Law and Justice party in Poland over the past few years, its deputy editor, Piotr Stasiński, said in Strasbourg.

The drain on time, mental health, and money risked making editors "pessimistic" or having a "chilling effect" on coverage, Stasiński said.

EUobserver in Brussels has also fought three SLAPP-type cases, some involving cross-border elements from Luxembourg and Belarus, in the past three years.

It did so with financial support from the ECPMF, which welcomes new applications for help.

Referring to Sweden's bowdlerised text, Jourová's spokeswoman said: "We will not comment on each step of the negotiations".

"We will work with the other institutions towards a swift adoption to effectively improve protection of journalists and human rights defenders from abusive court proceedings," she added.

The Swedish EU presidency did not comment on the record on the leaked compromise proposal.

This article was changed shortly after publication to add a quote by Jourová's spokeswoman. It was also corrected to say ECPMF was based in Leipzig, not Berlin.