On 13 October 2025, the MFRR Summit 2025 will take place in Brussels, bringing together journalists, policymakers, and civil society representatives to tackle the urgent challenges to press freedom in Europe. The Summit will address key issues such as disinformation, digital threats, shrinking media markets, and political pressure — all of which are placing increasing strain on journalism. Now more than ever, journalists need stronger protection and support.
Sessions: 9:00 - 18:30
The annual MFRR Summit brings together journalists, policymakers, and civil society to address urgent challenges free press in Europe experiences today, as well as to search for solutions. Technological changes, conflicts, turbulent elections, and disinformation campaigns are reshaping Europe's democratic fabric. Journalists are at the forefront of upholding Europe’s democratic values and freedoms, and today, they need protection and support more than ever.
Designed to feed into the policy discussions on the EU Democracy Shield, MFRR Summit facilitates a conversation between experts, journalists, and policy-makers to make the case that press freedom is not just a principle but an infrastructure we need to maintain and advance. Building on MFRR’s insights from its fact-finding and advocacy missions, reports based on monitoring of press freedom violations, and policy contributions, including MFRR submission to the Democracy Shield, MFRR Summit will focus on 5 key pillars critical to media resilience: economic viability, safety, legal protection, AI governance, and implementation of protection mechanisms as well as resistance to legal threats.
Schedule outline:
Welcoming message (9-9.10)
Opening Keynotes (9.10-9.30)
Panel 1. Media Economy Under Pressure: How to Ensure Economic Viability (9.30-10.30). From platform ad monopolies and collapsing business models to biased state funding and increased far-right influence, today’s public interest media sector is economically destabilised. This panel will address urgent issues and spotlight policy solutions: market reform, including reformed copyright, tax incentives, direct support with safeguards, and breaking VLOP dependency.
Moderator: Renate Schroeder, Director, European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
Panelists: Dr. Salla Nazarenko, International Affairs Specialist, the Union of Journalists in Finland; Anna Herold, Head of Unit, Audiovisual and Media Policy at European Commission; Sarah Murphy Madia, Journalists and a Policy Lead, What To Fix; Alina Păduraru, Executive Manager at Recorder, Romania
Panel 2: Unsafe to Report. Why Journalists Keep Looking Over Their Shoulders (10:45 – 11.45). Mapping 1,500+ press freedom violations in 2024 (MFRR Monitoring Report), this panel focuses on states where enforcement is failing, and threats are escalating - from police violence at protests to online smear campaigns and digital intimidation, often initiated or supported by power holders themselves. Discussion will zoom into the MFRR findings from its recent on-the-ground missions, highlighting the most urgent safety issues and discussing possible solutions.
Moderator: Ena Bavčić, EU Advocacy Officer, European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Panelists: Valentina Grippo, Member of Parliament, Rapporteur at the Council of Europe; Wael Eskandar, Berlin-based Egyptian Writer and Photographer, Germany; Firat Hamdi Buyuk, Editor at Balkan Insight, Turkey; Yanis Mhamdi, Journalist-Director, Blast, France
With a testimony by: Irma Dimitradze, Communications Manager and Journalist at Gazeti Batumelebi LLC, Georgia
Panel 3. Spoofing, Surveillance, Spyware. Journalists against Digital Threats (13.00-14.00). AI is reshaping journalism in multiple ways; while some are helpful, others are an imminent threat. AI and other advanced digital tools are used to erode trust, funding, and safety of journalists. Experts and journalists will address digital threats and discuss how to mitigate them via policies and structural support to journalists.
Moderator: Dimitri Bettoni, Researcher, Journalist, Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT), Italy
Panelists: Molly Cyr, Digital Forensics Lead at Amnesty International; Joanna Tricoli, Policy and Research Officer, Centre for Democracy & Technology Europe; Sarah Thust, Journalist at the Fact-Checking Team, Correctiv, Germany; Francesco Cancellato, Editor-in-chief at FanPage, Italy
With a testimony by: Ana Lalić Hegediš, Journalist, Executive Director of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina (NDNV), Serbia
Panel 4. Legal Protections. EMFA, Anti-SLAPP Directive: Implementation Highlights and Challenges (14.15-15.15). With the Anti-SLAPP Directive and EMFA passed, the real battle is in national transposition. MFRR will ground this discussion into its close observations of challenges that implementation of the protective laws faces and the developments on the ground in regards to the new legislation and regulations. How do we ensure that the “good” laws make real change in safeguarding free and independent journalists?
Moderator: Oliver Money-Kyrle, Head of Europe Advocacy and Programs, International Press Institute (IPI)
Panelists: Flutura Kusari, Senior Legal Expert, ECPMF; Marius Dragomir, Director, the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC); Researcher, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain; Danai Maragoudaki, Journalist, Solomon, Greece; Dora Kršul, Investigative Journalist, Telegram, Croatia
Ukraine Spotlight Interview (15.30-16.00)
Interviewer: Antanina Maslyka, Regional Director, ARTICLE 19 Europe
Guest: TBC
Panel 5. The Authoritarian Playbook. Foreign Agent Laws in the EU’s Shadow (16:15-17:15).
While protective regulations face implementation challenges, other laws, with potential to seriously damage media freedom and modeled after Russian “foreign agents law”, are mushrooming across Europe. From Hungary to Georgia, "foreign interest" rhetoric is creeping into policy. This panel tackles how the spread of “foreign agent laws” and hostile „foreign influence” rhetoric are being weaponised to stigmatise and pressure critical journalists, ultimately threatening media freedom and democratic participation.
Moderator: Flutura Kusari, Senior Legal Advisor, European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Panelists: Ana Lalić Hegediš, Journalist, Executive Director of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina (NDNV), Serbia; Ivana Korajlić, Executive Director at Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Lia Chakhunashvili, Executive Director of the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics
With a testimony by: Tamás Bodoky, Journalist, Editor and Publisher at Atlatszo.hu
Closing Remarks (17:15-18:30).
Registration opens on 11 August.
For more info, visit: https://www.mfrr.eu/mfrr-summit-2025/
Tags: media freedom Media ownership Media pluralism Safety of journalists Surveillance SLAPPThe content of this article can be used according to the terms of Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) . To do so use the the wording "this article was originally published on the Resource Centre on Media Freedom in Europe" including a direct active link to the original article page.
