When Law Meets Political Reality: What Comparative Evidence Reveals About EMFA and Media Capture

When the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) became directly applicable across the European Union in August 2025, it marked the EU’s most ambitious attempt to confront media capture through binding law. For the first time, the independence of media regulators, the governance of public service media, transparency in state advertising, and protections for media pluralism were brought together under a single legal framework. Yet whether these rules can meaningfully alter entrenched power structures has remained an open question.

A comparative assessment by the International Press Institute (IPI) and the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC), now in its second year, offers the clearest empirical insight to date by grounding its analysis in a well-established conceptual framework, namely media capture. The Media Capture Monitoring Report (MCMR): 2025 Overview, published in late 2025, synthesizes findings from eight national reports already released across Europe. Drawing on detailed national evidence, the MCMR offers a unique baseline against which future EMFA implementation can be measured.

Measuring EMFA through the lens of media capture

What sets this project apart is its analytical framework. Rather than treating EMFA compliance as a narrow exercise in legal transposition, the study evaluates implementation through an empirical framework on media capture developed by MJRC and now widely cited in scholarly and policy research. Media capture describes situations in which political or economic actors exert systemic control over media institutions, markets, and content, even when formal guarantees of independence exist.

The framework rests on four core pillars: the independence of media regulators, the independence of public service media, the misuse of state resources to influence media output, and media pluralism and ownership concentration. These pillars closely mirror EMFA’s central priorities, making the framework particularly well suited to assessing whether the regulation can achieve its stated objectives.

Using this approach, country experts examined not only whether national laws formally align with EMFA, but whether those rules are capable of dismantling, or preventing, existing capture mechanisms. The result is a rare comparative picture of how European media freedom law operates once it encounters domestic political realities.

A fragmented implementation landscape

The findings reveal a deeply uneven implementation landscape. Of the eight countries examined (Bulgaria, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain) only Finland is implementing EMFA in a timely and comprehensive manner. Legislative amendments affecting media market supervision and the governance of public broadcaster Yleisradio entered into force on the same day as EMFA itself, ensuring near-complete alignment. Even there, the report notes that political debates around funding demonstrate that independence is never fully insulated from pressure.

In the remaining countries, implementation has been partial, delayed, or politically selective. Romania and Bulgaria remain in preparatory phases, with draft laws and working groups but no concrete outcomes. Poland’s post-2023 political transition has not yet translated into EMFA-aligned legislation, as disputes over public media governance have absorbed political attention. Greece and Spain have introduced limited transparency reforms, while leaving the most sensitive EMFA provisions largely untouched.

The overview concludes that, one year after EMFA became applicable, legislative inertia, rather than open defiance, has emerged as the dominant pattern across a significant share of EU member states.

Hungary and the limits of EU enforcement

Hungary stands out as the most confrontational case. Instead of preparing domestic alignment, the Hungarian government has challenged the legality of EMFA before the Court of Justice of the European Union, arguing that the regulation exceeds EU competences. In parallel, no steps have been taken to adjust national media law to EMFA’s requirements.

This position has drawn strong criticism from press freedom organisations. IPI has publicly welcomed legal action addressing Hungary’s media freedom record and warned that the country represents a critical test of whether EMFA can be enforced against systemic capture. The MCMR findings reinforce this concern, documenting a sharp divergence between Hungary’s formal legal framework and the effective operation of its media system.

The report stresses that EMFA’s credibility will depend on whether EU institutions are willing to confront such resistance, rather than allowing prolonged non-compliance to hollow out the regulation.

Regulators and public service media under pressure

Across most countries examined, the independence of media regulators remains fragile. Although formal protections exist, often inherited from earlier EU directives, appointment procedures continue to permit decisive political influence. Parliamentary majorities retain leverage through nomination rules, dismissal mechanisms, or budgetary control. As a result, effective independence is rare, even where legal alignment appears strong.

Public service media face even greater vulnerability. The overview documents persistent politicization of governance, unstable funding, and weak oversight mechanisms across much of the sample. In Slovakia, the dissolution of the existing public broadcaster and its replacement with a new entity controlled by the parliamentary majority constitutes a direct conflict with EMFA’s requirements on public service media independence. In Hungary, public media operate in practice as state-aligned broadcasters, despite formal guarantees of autonomy.

Elsewhere, including in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Poland, and Spain, long-standing structural weaknesses continue to expose public broadcasters to political pressure. The report emphasizes that EMFA’s provisions on predictable funding, transparent appointments, and independent monitoring remain largely unimplemented.

State funding and pluralism: old tools, new rules

The misuse of state resources, particularly through advertising and public communication contracts, emerges as one of the most persistent mechanisms of media capture. EMFA introduces clear transparency and non-discrimination requirements, yet the overview finds that no country has yet established a fully effective system for monitoring and controlling these flows.

Similarly, media pluralism remains inadequately protected. While ownership transparency rules exist in fragmented form, no country has introduced the comprehensive, cross-media mechanisms envisaged by EMFA. Competition authorities continue to assess media mergers primarily through economic criteria, with limited attention to editorial independence or democratic impact.

The overarching conclusion of the overview is cautious, yet unambiguous. EMFA has created a powerful legal reference point, but its effectiveness will depend on political will, enforcement, and sustained monitoring. Without these, there is a real risk that governments will comply formally while preserving the structures that enable media capture.

Summary

Subject: European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) implementation
Approach: Media capture framework
Scope: Comparative analysis of eight EU member states (Bulgaria, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain)

This article analyzes the first year of EMFA applicability by assessing whether national implementation can prevent or dismantle media capture. Rather than focusing on formal legal compliance, the analysis evaluates how EMFA operates in practice when confronted with existing political, regulatory, and market structures.

Using a media capture framework developed by the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC), the study examines four dimensions: independence of media regulators, independence of public service media, misuse of state resources (including state advertising), and media pluralism.

Findings show highly uneven implementation across countries. Finland stands out for timely and comprehensive alignment, while most others display legislative delay or selective reform. Hungary represents a case of open resistance, highlighting limits of EU enforcement.

For full datasets, methodology, and structured AI-ingestion material, see the Media Capture Monitoring Report: 2025 Overview (available on MJRC’s website and on IPI’s project page).