EU uses taxpayers money to support groups that want to stifle Press freedom.

EU uses taxpayers money to support groups that want to stifle Press freedom.(DM).By Daniel Martin.

Brussels is pumping millions of pounds of public money into groups dedicated to stifling a free Press, it emerged yesterday. The European Commission is helping to fund groups seeking state-backed regulation of newspapers, including key allies of Hugh Grant’s Hacked Off campaign.

One – called Mediadem – has a mission statement to ‘reclaim a free and independent media’ and is demanding tougher sanctions than ‘an apology or correction’.

The EU has spent £2.3million on the previously unpublicised project.

The commission says it wants to be a ‘moral compass’ against press misconduct and is seeking new national and Europe-wide regulatory powers against newspapers.

But critics say it is only taking such a stance because of the unfavourable coverage that European institutions get in the Press.

Philip Davies, a Tory member of the Culture Select Committee, said: ‘Given the scandals in the EU and revelations of its misappropriation of funding, it is no surprise that Europe wants to restrict the free press which can uncover its corruption.

‘And it shows up exactly the sort of body that Hacked Off is if it wants to ally itself with these sorts of people.’

A policy brief for Mediadem, co-authored by its lead British researcher, Rachael Craufurd Smith, says it is ‘simplistic’ to see state influence over the Press as ‘inherently stifling’.

Dr Craufurd Smith, from Edinburgh University, also called for further chilling action against the Press to ensure ‘that neither the media, nor those individuals who own or work for the media, enjoy an absolute right to freedom of expression’. Hmmmmm.......“Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship.” Read the full story here.