The European Commission is making €20.5 million available through three new funding calls to support journalism, media pluralism and media literacy across Europe.
The money will be offered under the Creative Europe programme, with applications opening on 22 October, the Commission informed on Wednesday.
The largest call — worth €14 million — will fund “journalism partnerships” to support collaborations between media organisations and the work of local and public interest outlets.
That call has two strands: one focused on “pluralism”, aimed at organisations that can set up and distribute funds to news media in areas linked to democracy such as local and public interest media, and another focused on “collaboration” for cross-border projects between news organisations, including work on business models and journalistic projects across Europe.
Media literacy and rapid response monitoring
A separate €3.5 million call will support cross-border media literacy projects, intended to help citizens develop skills to navigate information safely and confidently, the Commission said.
Another €3 million call will fund an independent, Europe-wide rapid response mechanism to monitor violations of press and media freedom in the EU and candidate countries.
The monitoring is expected to provide data on threats to media pluralism and the safety of journalists, and feed into the EU’s annual Rule of Law reporting.
