CASE SLAPPs report 2024 - SLAPPs in Europe: Mapping Trends and Cases

In its annual report, SLAPPs in Europe: Mapping Trends and Cases, CASE highlights Italy as the country with the highest number of SLAPPs recorded, totaling 26 cases. Following Italy are Romania with 15 cases, and Serbia and Turkey, each with 10 cases.

The data, referring to 2023, result from monitoring conducted across 41 EU member states and candidate countries, documenting a total of 166 SLAPP cases. CASE’s database, a product of a multi-year effort now in its third edition, has recorded a total of 1,049 SLAPPs initiated between 2010 and 2023. Examining the data over this 13-year period provides valuable insights for EU lawmakers, especially as they work on implementing the anti-SLAPP Directive adopted by the European Parliament last February.

The report confirms that SLAPP targets are predominantly individual journalists, followed by media outlets, their directors, activists, and NGOs. SLAPP plaintiffs are typically those in positions of power, whether in business or politics. The subject matter of SLAPPs in 2023 is particularly significant, ranging from public health to sexual abuse. Alarmingly, 36.1% of the cases examined were initiated in response to attempts to expose corruption, while 16.1% were linked to public statements addressing environmental issues. These findings reaffirm that SLAPPs primarily target those seeking to foster public debate on matters of public interest, with the sole aim of silencing criticism.

Finally, a crucial point for European decision-makers preparing to transpose the EU Directive: according to CASE’s report, only 9.4% of the cases analyzed between 2010 and 2023 were cross-border in nature—the type of civil actions covered by the Directive.