On 3 July, the Belgian Competition Authority (Autorité belge de la Concurrence or ABC) conditionally authorised the takeover of the IPM media group – publisher of the daily newspapers “La Libre”, “La Dernière Heure” and “L’Avenir” – by the Rossel media group, publisher of the daily newspapers “Le Soir” and “Sudinfo”, paving the way for the creation of a monopoly on daily newspaper publishing in the French-speaking part of the country. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joins its affiliate, the Association of Professional Journalists (AJP), in calling on the publisher to inform, consult and negotiate the terms of the takeover with the journalists’ representatives.
The AJP, the Society of Professional Journalists of “Le Soir” (SJPS), the Society of Editors of “La Libre” (SDR-LLB), the Society of Editors of “L’Avenir” (SDR L’Avenir), and the trade union delegations of the publications concerned have criticised the management of the two groups for failing to involve them in drawing up the conditions intended to safeguard media pluralism in this new monopolistic context.
The AJP believes that, in the absence of firm guarantees regarding job security, serious concerns remain about Rossel’s plans for the group’s regional daily newspapers. In addition, the only commitment Rossel has made to freelance journalists is a ‘code of conduct’. Rossel’s obligation “not to worsen conditions for freelancers” has been removed, as has the provision for a possible annual renegotiation of freelancers’ fees – two commitments that had previously been included.
The European Regulatory Authority, the European Board for Media Services (EBMS), noted in a statement issued on 2 July that “the combined entity would account for approximately 94% of the French-speaking daily print press and around 82% of online news-media platforms in the relevant French-speaking Belgian market. (…) A concentration of this scale and with these percentages would create a near-monopolistic position within the French-speaking press ecosystem in Belgium and could significantly affect the diversity of ownership, the plurality of editorial voices, the range of information available to audiences and the conditions under which journalists exercise editorial independence”.
“The EFJ regrets that the Media Board deliberately refrained from carrying out a formal assessment of this unprecedented merger, even though it has done so in other cases of purely national scope, such as the acquisition of Ringier Hungary by Indamedia Network,” said EFJ general secretary Ricardo Gutiérrez. “The EBMS is paying little heed to a major concentration of media ownership that will have a considerable impact on the right of French-speaking people in Belgium to access free, independent and pluralistic information. This resignation comes at a time when the Media Pluralism Monitor has just indicated that Belgium is one of the five European countries with the most worrying levels in terms of plurality of media providers”.
Source: EFJ
