EU legal adviser finds Hungary erred by nixing contract for independent radio station

(CN) — Hungary infringed EU law by refusing to renew the contract of Klubrádió, an independent radio station that is often critical of the government, an adviser to the EU's top court said Thursday.

EU advocate general Athanasios Rantos agreed with the European Commission's claim that the radio station was wrongly prevented from providing its services when the government opted not to renew its license.

The adviser, whose opinions are nonbinding but often followed by the court, said the decision breached the principle of proportionality, since Klubrádió’s issues weren't serious enough to take it off the air.

The EU's executive body also said Hungary breached the regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services, which stipulates that radio frequencies must be assigned on criteria that is objective, transparent, non-discriminatory and proportionate. Rantos said those criteria also apply to renewals.

Over the past decade, the station has been fighting for its existence under an extreme-right government headed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán , who has vowed to crack down on the media. Last month on Hungary’s National Day, Orbán said it was time to get rid of a “shadow army,” partly comprised of journalists, that promote the EU and a “liberal American empire.”

“After today's celebrations, comes the big Easter cleaning up as the bugs have survived the winter," Orbán said. "We will eliminate the whole shadow army ... who have supported the empire for money, against their own country."

The Klubrádio case sparked concern over freedom of the press. It’s a left-wing station that reportedly lost funding from companies that fear advertising on its frequency for fear of political repercussions.

Kim Scheppele, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton, told Courthouse News that although Rantos’ opinion was a positive, it might have come too late.

“Klubrádió has already been pushed off the air into a streaming service and the broadcast frequencies have been assigned to others … Getting Klubrádió its frequency back, as a result, would require terminating another broadcaster’s lease, which raises the same problems of violating EU law,” she said. “So it’s a bit unclear how this ruling will actually change facts on the ground in Hungary, where the press is constantly intimidated by the government and press freedom is the lowest in Europe.”

The station signed a contract with Mediatanács, the Media Council, to use the 92.9 frequency across Budapest in 2014. The contract was concluded for seven years with an option to renew for five years, the court said.

Mediatanács said the station didn't provide adequate information on broadcasting quotas, which it considered a repeated infringement — which automatically leads to the refusal to renew the contract, under Hungarian law.

"It is not the first time that supposed-to-be independent media authorities apply frequency renewal process selectively at the expense of critical broadcasters ... . Both the European Commission's move and the AG opinion are welcome steps, but unfortunately the infringement procedure takes time, and meanwhile essential voices get silenced," Maria Luisa Stasi, head of Law and Policy for Digital Markets at ARTICLE 19, told Courthouse News.

Stasi said the new European Media Freedom Act, which addresses fragmented approaches to media regulation across the block and will be fully in force in August, can help.

"We hope that an effective enforcement of the EMFA will contribute to remedy this situation and strengthen the independence of media regulators across the EU — indeed, the role of these authorities should be to protect and support media freedom and plurality in the country, not to misuse rules to shut down opposition," she said.

In 2024, Human Rights Watch published a report detailing the “systematic undermining of media freedom in Hungary. It identified six areas of concern: politicized and biased media regulation, declining media pluralism, political interference in editorial decisions, arbitrary obstacles to journalists’ access to government information and sources, surveillance and smear campaigns against independent journalists.

The rights group says the government has been trying to control the media since Orbán's party, the Fidesz-KDPN, took power in 2010. It filled the Media Council — the organization overseeing the renewal of radio contracts — with loyalists to the party, according to the report, and fired over 1,600 journalists to replace them with people loyal to Orbán.

The prime minister appoints the president of the media authority, according to laws introduced in 2010.

“The Fidesz-KDPN government, through its absolute majority in parliament, has taken a series of legislative measures and other steps to limit independent reporting and facilitate media takeovers by owners and investors politically sympathetic to Fidesz,” researchers wrote in the report.

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