The Hungarian media law: what to think about it

Hungary began a presidency of the European Union on the defensive and currently spends most of its time defending the new media law it has just passed. The appearance of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban before the European Parliament this morning is likely to be eventful. What should we think of this "damn" law?

This law is the transposition of a 2007 directive on audiovisual services, hence a series of provisions on the protection of "human dignity", "protection of children", etc... As such , the European commissioner in charge of audiovisual, Neelie Kroes, has already expressed her reservations.

The argument of the Hungarian government is to say that it has only taken from other laws existing in other European countries. Indeed when we look at the good old French law on the press of 1881, we still find the day before “offending the head of state”. (but the other provisions on the prohibition of the foreign press have recently been repealed).

Hungarian law actually goes much further than existing laws in other countries. It does not only concern audiovisual services, where specific rules have always existed, but all the press, including the written press.

In particular, in its article 13, it makes a series of obligations that are surprising to say the least. Which obliges the media to have a complete, general, objective and balanced content. However, the opinion press is not bound by this obligation. We would never have a newspaper like Liberation, Humanity, Le Figaro or Le Monde with such obligations.

• Article 13: (1) All media content providers shall provide authentic, rapid and accurate information on local, national and EU affairs and on any event that bears relevance to the citizens of the Republic of Hungary and members of the Hungarian nation.

•  (2) Linear and on-demand media content providers engaged in news coverage operations shall provide comprehensive, factual, up-to-date, objective and balanced coverage on local, national and European issues that may be of interest for the general public and on any event bearing relevance to the citizens of the Republic of Hungary and members of the Hungarian nation.  

Behind this law, there is thus a desire for revenge on the part of political leaders. As a government minister told me in an informal conversation, we find it normal for a journalist to do an interview, even under very harsh conditions. But it is not normal that he then adds comments…

Viktor Orban claims to be part of the Hungarian revolution of 1956. He probably forgets one of the fundamental points of claim of the 1956 revolution, point 12 of the resolution voted by young Hungarians at the time: "total freedom of the press, of speech, of opinion".

The best solution for the Hungarian presidency is the suspension of this law. But beyond that there is indeed a problem for the media in Europe. We could not but be struck by the silence of the European Commission vis-à-vis the situation in Italy where the head of government directly or indirectly accumulated most of the TV media. There is therefore a need for an anti- European trust preventing the seizure by a person, a party or a government of most of the media and a directive guaranteeing the press the free exercise of its vocation (to inform), the protection of its sources, the freedom of opinion , with certain limits which can only be set in the event of infringement of other fundamental rights (defamation in particular). It will not be easy to define. But it may be necessary to go through it to avoid other "media laws" in the future.

Nicolas Gros Verheyde