EU auditors raise concerns about Euronews funding

February 20, 2020 / By mobanmarket

EU auditors raise concerns about Euronews funding

Between 2014 and 2018, the Commission spent €122M on the channel.

The European Court of Auditors has raised concerns about the oversight of millions of euros that the European Commission has spent on the broadcaster Euronews.

About a third of Euronews’ annual turnover comes from EU funding, the auditors wrote in a new case review, pointing out that between 2014 and 2018, the Commission spent €122 million on the channel. Euronews’ geographic and linguistic coverage “could not be maintained without this EU support,” the auditors wrote.

The auditors looked into the EU’s relationship with Euronews following a request from the European Parliament “to examine if the funding to Euronews is carried out in an efficient and transparent way and solely used to fulfil the mandate given to Euronews.”

In its review, the Court of Auditors noted EU citizens’ lack of access to Euronews, despite the fact that taxpayer money goes into the channel.

“No EU Member State has accorded Euronews a public service mandate or considered it as a public service broadcaster, meaning they do not provide it with any direct funding,” the auditors wrote, adding that “Euronews is therefore not accessible to most or all citizens in the European Union.”

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The auditors also raised concerns about accountability.

“The EU provides a major source of revenues to a TV channel that is mostly privately owned,” said Mihails Kozlovs, the member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the review. “The European Commission should verify annually if Euronews complies with the commitments on preserving its editorial impartiality and a European perspective. But we found no formal link between these commitments and the Commission’s criteria for annually awarding the funds.”

Euronews, however, maintains that it reaches many European households and has a strong editorial board.

“The fact that Euronews is privately owned does not impact its historical mission of European general interest in the field of information, notably thanks to a specific governance that has been implemented since 2015, giving strong and unique powers to an Editorial Board controlled by the Public shareholders,” Euronews Chief Financial Officer David Cipel wrote in response to questions from POLITICO.

“The EU currently funds several linguistic editions such as Greek, Hungarian, Arabic and Farsi, which indeed contribute to the geographic and linguistic coverage of the media,” Cipel wrote, adding that “the distribution of Euronews in the EU countries is already very significant. Its TV distribution reaches 171m households in Europe, of which 140m households (full time and part time) in the 28 countries of the EU [sic]. These 140m households covers 67% of all households in the EU 28 countries.”

Responding to the auditors’ concerns about transparency and accountability, Cipel said that “in its annual Work Program submitted to the European Commission, Euronews presents all the objectives set by the FPA [Framework Partnership Agreements] and how it intends to meet them during the upcoming year.”

“All contracts with the European Commission are under the direct coordination of DG Connect,” he added.

The Commission said that it adheres to strict standards of accountability in its dealings with Euronews.

“Euronews is subject to a rigorous monitoring through regular external and independent evaluations and audits,” a Commission spokesperson said in response to a request for comment from POLITICO.

“In 2016, the Commission asked for an independent audit on the performance of Euronews funding. The conclusions of this audit helped to set the current framework agreement signed with Euronews,” the spokesperson said.

“The report concludes that the Commission’s support has allowed Euronews to attract new partners, develop a unique business model and make better use of digital technologies. These were our objectives under the Juncker Commission and it is the first conclusion of the report — so we welcome this,” the spokesperson said, adding that “the Commission is also taking note of the other conclusions of the report with a view to further improving its partnership with Euronews in the future. In this regard, the report seems to point to particular monitoring needs, but does not question the monitoring itself.”

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