PARTICIPATION IN THE SEMINAR ‘STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY AND THE PLURALISM OF THE MEDIA’ (15.10.21)

MEP Javier Zarzalejos has participated in a seminar organized by the Office of the European Parliament in Spain on media pluralism, together with the president of the Civil Liberties Commission (LIBE), Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D); MEP Diana Riba (Greens); the journalist, Aurora Mínguez, and the German ARD TV correspondent in Budapest, Edit Inotai.

During his speech, Zarzalejos assured that “we are in a situation in which fortunately the European Parliament and the European institutions are turning their eyes to the difficulties of the media, accelerated in various ways by the pandemic.” In his opinion, “after COVID-19, the business weakness of the media sector in many countries has become evident and the crisis of the traditional media business model has intensified.” “All this has had an impact on the quality of the information itself,” he stressed.

Likewise, he pointed out that “the pandemic has produced the spread of disinformation to suffocating levels that have put us all on guard. It is an existential problem, not only for the media but also presents enormous challenges for democracy and public debate”.

For Zarzalejos, “good information is what has to evict bad information, fake news and misinformation from the public space.”

Finally, he wanted to emphasize that “the main objective both at the level of the European Union and at the national level should be that we can have a media that continues to contribute to the normal functioning of our democracies because without the media, without a free press there is no representative democracy”.