The International Press Institute (IPI) and the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) today publish a new report examining media capture in Slovakia in 2025 and the country’s compliance with the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA).
The report – the fifth in a new series of Media Capture Monitoring Reports for 2025 – reviews developments regarding media capture and control in Slovakia over the past year and assesses the country’s compliance with EMFA since the EU Commission’s regulation entered into full force in August 2025.
It concludes that though legislation adopted in 2025 addressed some areas of the EMFA, the regulation has only been partially adopted, and major overhaul of the public broadcaster by the coalition government of Prime Minister Robert Fico directly violated EMFA rules on independent public service broadcasting.
With the explicit political aim of capturing public service broadcasting, the government dissolved the public broadcaster RTVS and established a new entity, STVR, which is controlled exclusively by pro-government appointees. By 2025, these appointees had already implemented measures demonstrating that the direction of reform was toward a less independent and more politically captured broadcaster, in clear violation of the EMFA.
Examining these developments in detail, the report provides recommendations on a variety of measures and policies necessary to address media capture in Slovakia and create a free, pluralistic and democratic media ecosystem, in line with EMFA provisions.
This report is part of a broader series covering seven other EU countries: Bulgaria, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Spain.
IPI and MJRC will also publish an overview report, summarising major developments across the EU in the past year. The next reports will be published in the coming weeks
These reports are intended as a vital resource for media rights organizations, civil society groups, policymakers, and advocates dedicated to monitoring and fostering media freedom across the EU.
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This report by IPI is part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries.
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