While the EMFA overall has been welcomed as a timely boost for safeguarding media pluralism and independent journalism, the impact the Article 4 provisions will have on limiting press surveillance remains in doubt and certainly falls short of initial expectations. After a spate of major surveillance scandals involving journalists in the EU in recent years, hopes were high that the EMFA would put an end to the abuse of advanced surveillance tools such as Pegasus or Predator to monitor journalists’ communications. Yet uneasiness persists over whether the EMFA’s provisions will be strong enough or whether bad actors can still exploit the remaining loopholes.

In Greece, rather than those behind the illegal surveillance of journalists in 2021 and 2022 being identified and prosecuted, journalists who revealed the abuse of spyware tools have been hit with Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP) lawsuits by powerful figures. While a new law in Greece prohibits the use of spyware, the export of such spyware technologies remains legal.

In Hungary, meanwhile, no accountability has been achieved, with authorities instead targeting the journalists who exposed the surveillance scandal. Concerns persist that the same flimsy justifications provided by authorities will continue to be brought forward without proper oversight. In both states, governments and, in some cases, captured institutions have obstructed accountability. In both, domestic legal remedies have not proven successful in achieving justice. This complete lack of accountability is a major stain on press freedom in Europe and has been a central factor to the decline of media freedom in both states.