“EU: As deadline passes, we call urgent implementation of Anti-SLAPP Directive”, 7 May 2026

While the Anti-SLAPP Directive marked a significant step forward in protecting journalists and media from abusive litigation, its implementation at the national level remains alarmingly incomplete. Although there are some positive examples, the majority of states are seriously lagging behind and others have made no progress at all.

Today, Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners issue an urgent call to Member States to demonstrate their commitment to media freedom by accelerating their legislative processes and ensuring that national measures fully reflect both the letter and the spirit of the Directive, as well as by introducing substantive and procedural safeguards set out in in EU and Council of Europe Recommendations…

The willingness of the countries, however, to meaningfully transpose this Directive has proven to be limited... Only a handful of countries have begun to implement it, as the European Anti-SLAPP Monitor shows. 

France and Malta stand out among the few countries to have ‘partially implemented’ the directive. However, these processes have not been ideal…

A majority of Member States including Belgium, Germany, and Netherlands, have formally ‘started’ the transposition process... However, in most of these countries, concerns continue about the minimum level of transposition envisioned in the draft laws…

Among these, the Belgian draft law stands out as one of the more progressive transpositions of the Directive…

At the same time, several countries, including Italy and Hungary, have not yet begun transposition…

In some cases, such as Portugal, limited publicly available information makes it difficult to assess the state of implementation…