The European Screenwriters Union released a report on Wednesday documenting how far-right attacks on European public broadcasters threaten freedom of speech and artistic expression.
The umbrella group, which represents 31 screenwriters’ unions and associations from 25 countries, says these attempts to cut funding or exercise political control over public broadcasters have a direct impact on creatives, who are under pressure to self-censor if they want to get work.
In a 61-page report entitled “The Right to Write,” the union highlighted cases from across Europe where right-wing parties in power have implemented a “playbook” to delegitimize journalism, intimidate critics, concentrate media influence, weaponize regulatory bodies, politicize cultural bodies, or defund or seize those public institutions that shape the shared reality.
The report cites efforts by right-wing governments in power in countries such as Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Slovakia to exercise political control over national media by withdrawing funding, threatening to challenge or revoke broadcast licenses, and installing loyalists in key positions of power in public broadcasters.
“Most far-right and populist parties in Europe are united in their desire to weaken or close the public broadcasting service, or, if in power, to subordinate it to their own agendas,” former union president Caroline Otto wrote in the introduction to the report.
Otto writes that many far-right parties across Europe are trying to present and disseminate a “nationalist imaginary” about “a past that never existed, of faith, family, and homeland,” and are willing to “censor those stories that do not fit into this frozen mythology, this fixed, idealized vision of the past.” She believes that their attempts to influence public channels and funding bodies are an “attack” on freedom of artistic expression. She notes that in many cases, systems have already been put in place “to limit the topics and themes that can be addressed by writers” seeking public support, “leading to widespread self-censorship.”
“This is a warning that we in Europe need to be very worried,” says Hélène Bjerke of Junidibony, the Belgian production company that produces dystopian sci-fi series. Arcadia. “We all see what is happening in the United States, and we never thought that a democracy like the United States could become what it is now.”
European broadcasters have already become more cautious and conservative in their commissioning, Berki says, leading to a decline in efforts to promote on-screen diversity or storytelling from marginalized groups.
“You said the old white man is back,” she says. “It’s a joke, but it’s also true.”
Berki argues that European public broadcasters need to act as a counterweight to commercial networks and streaming companies, to be “bold, diverse and let many voices in.”
Public broadcasters are the main source of funding for TV fantasy production in Europe, accounting for 55% of fantasy series commissions in 2023, compared to 31% for commercial broadcasters and 14% for global broadcasters. In 2023, the latest year for which figures are available, public broadcasters will spend about 7.2 billion euros ($8.3 billion) on original European content, excluding news and sports rights. Government subsidies and state tax incentives are also a major source of film funding, with the federation estimating that direct public film funding represents 27 percent of total production costs for theatrical life features in 2022, with another 20 percent coming from taxes and other incentives.
Otto wrote that the attacks on public broadcasters proposed by far-right parties undermine “a fundamental pillar of the European mandate for the audiovisual sector and production financing.” European broadcasters must “be free from politically motivated interference in their work, in particular when they broadcast material critical of the government or comments on problematic aspects of contemporary life.”
“Critical of the government” material commenting on “problematic aspects of contemporary life” seems to describe a large portion of this year’s Series Mania lineup. Belgium selection series The best immigrantwhich imagines a dystopian future after the election of a far-right, anti-immigrant party in Flanders; SVT’s legal drama Burden of justiceOn the corrupting influence of money on the Swedish justice system; and Spanish period drama Anatomy of a momentwhich traces the story of the 1981 coup attempt that nearly returned the country to fascism.
The 2026 Series Mania continues until March 27.
