The Charter on Freedom of the Press initiated by the European journalist community is an important reaffirmation of the basic values, including media pluralism, freedom of expression and information that underpin Europe's democratic traditions and are enshrined in fundamental legal texts, Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, said on June 9 2009.

"It is also a reminder that in order to have effective freedom of the press, public authorities have a role to play: they must be ready to protect freedom of expression and foster its development," Reding said.

She was speaking at a meeting with Hans-Ulrich Joerges, editor-in-chief of the German magazine Stern and initiator of the European Charter on Freedom of the Press.

The Charter was signed on May 25 by 48 European journalists from 19 countries to protect the press from government interference and ensure journalists' access to sources of information.

The Charter, which formulates the main values that public authorities should respect when dealing with journalists, was presented and handed over by Joerges to Reding.

Welcoming Reding’s acceptance of the Charter, Joerges said: "We therefore assume that the Commission will itself comply with this Charter and will contribute actively to ensuring its recognition throughout Europe.
 
"At the same time, we expect recognition of the Charter to be made a condition for candidate countries in future accession negotiations. The Charter's main concern is at last to unify Europe journalistically and to enable all our colleagues to invoke its principles if press freedom is violated".

The Charter's 10 articles outline basic principles that governments must respect when dealing with journalists, such as prohibition of censorship, free access to national and foreign media sources and freedom to gather and disseminate information.

The Charter also emphasises the protection of journalists from being spied on and calls for an effective judiciary system safeguarding the rights of journalists (full text of the Charter in the Annex). So far, the Charter exists in eight languages (English, French, German, Danish, Croatian, Russian, Polish and Romanian) and is available online where interested journalists can sign it.

The idea of the Charter on Freedom of the Press was born in 2007, during a meeting between Reding, Joerges and other editors-in-chief of European newspapers.
 
The European Commission said that such high-level dialogues between the print media and the Commission have been organised since 2005 on a yearly basis on a range of different topics by the Commission's Media Task Force, responsible for screening all Commission output so as to make sure that Commission initiatives do not unintentionally damage the editorial or commercial freedom of the printed press.

The Charter on the Freedom of the press is an outcome of these discussions.

The European Charter on Freedom of the Press and the list of its signatories can be accessed at: http://www.pressfreedom.eu