'EU plan to protect journalists from malicious lawsuits moves forward', 04 October 2021

The European Commission initiated on Monday (4 October) a public consultation on its plan to protect journalists and human rights defenders from litigation designed to curtail their work.

Feedback from the consultation will inform the Commission’s upcoming initiative focused on the so-called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), which are often used by businesses, governments or individuals to silence figures from the media or human rights fields. 

... The proposed initiative was announced in December 2020 as part of the European Democracy Action Plan, a broad package of measures designed to strengthen free elections, protect media freedoms and counter disinformation. The use of SLAPPs against journalists in Europe has been growing and calls for the EU to take action to combat them have mounted since the assassination in 2017 of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was facing 47 such lawsuits at the time of her death... The public consultation period, which will last until 10 January 2022, precedes the initiative’s expected adoption in the spring...