Niculescu Kicks Open the Government's Door: A Shower of Public Money for the Press

Prime Minister-designate Luca Niculescu announced in his parliamentary speech on Tuesday, ahead of the investiture vote, that his government would support the press with state funds, which he justified by the need to act against foreign information manipulation. "Since the security of a modern democracy must also be protected against hybrid warfare and disinformation, we will set up, at government level, a mechanism to respond to foreign information manipulation - without any censorship powers whatsoever - and we will establish the National Information Resilience Fund, which will transparently support media literacy, fact-checking and the independent local press," he said. He also referred to his own background as a journalist: "I was a journalist for more than twenty years. I know how important press freedom is in a democracy, and how necessary it is for citizens to have access to credible information." The government has since been sworn in, but Niculescu did not reveal how large the sum would be, what criteria would apply, or who would decide on the distribution of the funds.

The announcement raised suspicion because the Romanian government has already paid the press directly once before, and the result was not free and responsible reporting. In May 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, Ludovic Orban's government launched an information campaign by emergency government ordinance, setting aside around 200 million lei for it. The General Secretariat of the Government paid television stations and publications directly for advertisements encouraging mask-wearing and compliance with pandemic rules. According to Spotmedia, the Intact media group received the most, more than 14 million lei, followed by Kanal D and Pro TV. G4Media points out that most of the money was paid out in the middle of the local and parliamentary election campaign, meaning the campaign in effect served an electoral purpose. In 2022, the Court of Accounts, during a spot-check audit, ruled the payments unjustified, since the invoices had been paid without verifying the contractual conditions, and ordered the repayment of the sums disbursed unlawfully.

Niculescu's proposal has an obvious purpose, and the need to combat disinformation is real. In Romania, a presidential election had to be annulled because of a suspiciously coordinated TikTok campaign, and in many places the local press is dying out for lack of money - yet the timing says a lot: 2027 is the year before the elections, and 2028 is the election year itself, when both local and parliamentary elections will be held. The fact that a government made up predominantly of PSD members will itself decide which publication counts as "independent local press" and which fact-checker deserves support could easily lead to the same place the 2020 campaign led. The phrases "without censorship powers" and "in a transparent way" are, for now, just words. What they turn out to be worth will depend on who distributes the money, under what rules, and who oversees the process.

Ugar