Copyright: European Union

Malta lacks meaningful transparency rules for media ownership and has seen a sustained campaign of political smear attacks against independent journalists, according to a new European report that also warns press freedom across the EU has reached a crisis point.

The Liberties Media Freedom Report 2026, published by the Civil Liberties Union for Europe, places Malta among a group of member states where opacity in media ownership, political interference in public broadcasting and the weaponisation of legal and rhetorical tools against journalists have combined to create a deeply compromised media environment.

On ownership transparency, the report is blunt. “In Malta, no specific legal obligations exist for media companies to publish their ownership structures on their website or in other ways that are easily accessible to the public,” it states. Companies are required to submit documentation to the Registrar of Companies, but the report makes clear this falls well short of genuine public accountability.

The picture on journalist safety is equally troubling. While Malta recorded no physical attacks on journalists in the past year, the report documents what it describes as multiple instances of smear campaigns orchestrated at the highest levels of government. Prime Minister Robert Abela attacked independent news outlet The Shift News in January 2025, claiming that 90% of its reporting contained falsehoods, calling it a “force of darkness” and a “fake news blog.”

Former EU Commissioner John Dalli published a Facebook post accusing independent media of inventing “stories and hallucinations.” The report places Malta alongside Hungary and Romania as countries where politicians have used this kind of language to systematically discredit independent media.

Trust in Maltese media reflects the damage. According to the latest Eurobarometer figures cited in the report, trust in Malta’s written press is the lowest in Europe, running 20 percentage points below the EU average, with the report noting that “trust in Malta is heavily influenced by party affiliation.”

Public service broadcasting presents its own set of concerns. The report notes that PBS came under fire in 2025 when its lineup ahead of elections featured presenters closely linked to the ruling Labour Party. Critically, the PBS board of directors remains appointed by the prime minister, and the report states that “Malta and Romania suffer from politically appointed boards that interfere with editorial independence.”

Malta’s implementation of the EU’s Anti-SLAPP Directive, designed to protect journalists from abusive lawsuits, has also drawn criticism. The report finds that while Malta technically transposed the directive, “the text does not cover domestic cases” and the maximum penalty that can be imposed on a plaintiff is capped at €10,000, which it suggests may be insufficient to deter wealthy individuals or large corporations.

These findings land against a backdrop of stalled media reform that stretches back years. Draft media bills were tabled in parliament in October 2022 without public consultation, then withdrawn. A public consultation finally launched in July 2025 closed in October of that year. Six months on, no clear next steps have been announced.

In its Rule of Law Report published in July 2025, the European Commission delivered a stark assessment: Malta had made “no progress” in adopting legislative safeguards to protect journalists, and “no progress” in strengthening the independence of public service media. A coalition of five leading press freedom groups, including Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists, issued a joint statement in April 2026 condemning what they called “persistent inaction” and urging the European Commission to use the benchmarks of the European Media Freedom Act to compel compliance.

On the RSF World Press Freedom Index, Malta ranked 67th out of 180 countries in 2025, with a score that places it in the “problematic” category, making it one of the worst performers in the European Union.

The Maltese media landscape sits within a broader European deterioration. The report finds that media ownership concentration increased across the EU in 2025, with ownership structures remaining opaque in Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Slovenia and Spain.

Moreover, state advertising is being used as a tool of political influence in Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta and Slovenia, while journalists’ safety has reached what the report calls “a crisis point,” with explosive attacks in Italy and Greece, 20 Italian journalists now requiring round-the-clock police protection, and a record 377 serious incidents against journalists recorded in 2025, including death threats.

Eva Simon, senior advocacy officer at Liberties, framed the stakes in stark terms. “A healthy, pluralistic media system is a litmus test and mirror of democracy,” she said. “This is why the European Media Freedom Act needs to be transpositioned, and more importantly, enforced as quickly and as strongly as possible across all Member States.”