Despite appeals from the Order of Journalists and the Italian National Press Federation, the Meloni government has excluded the EU directive against frivolous lawsuits, effectively weakening press freedom.
SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) are legal actions brought against journalists for instrumental purposes. Here’s how they work in practice: politicians, businesspeople or white-collar workers who want to block a journalistic investigation file a series of criminal complaints and/or frivolous civil lawsuits designed solely to intimidate and silence those exercising their right to report and criticise.
Reporters, especially freelancers without a major publisher behind them, often prefer to abandon the work that is the subject of the lawsuit and move on to another topic.
In Italy, this phenomenon has taken on structural dimensions. According to estimates by the Order of Journalists, every year hundreds of professionals are dragged into court for articles, investigations or posts that touch on economic and political interests.
And even when the proceedings end in dismissal or acquittal, the damage has already been done: months of hearings, legal fees, a climate of fear that discourages investigation and reinforces self-censorship.
The European Union initiative
In response to this trend, the European Parliament has approved Directive 2024/1069, dedicated to protecting people active in public participation from abusive or manifestly unfounded legal proceedings.
The text requires Member States to introduce legal instruments to quickly filter out intimidating lawsuits, provide for sanctions against those who bring them and ensure support for victims of such abuses.
This is not just a technical act but a strong political signal: Brussels recognises that freedom of expression cannot be defended with words alone, but also with concrete mechanisms of judicial protection.
The appeal of the OdG and FNSI
In Italy, the Order of Journalists and its main trade union (the National Press Federation) have called for the directive to be transposed into national law without delay. During a hearing before the Chamber’s XIV European Affairs Committee, the president of the Order, Carlo Bartoli, pointed out that the European Commission’s 2025 Report on the Rule of Law reveals “a worrying decline in media conditions” and that journalists “are increasingly becoming the target of intimidatory legal action”.
Bartoli stressed the need for a specific, clear and effective law capable of extending the protections provided for to national cases as well, and not only to cross-border cases as indicated in the European text. “Such a law,” he explained, “would be an important contribution to strengthening the protection of press freedom, a fundamental value of modern democracies that is at risk of being called into question”.
The Meloni government’s decision
Despite the appeal, the government’s response was negative. The anti-SLAPP directive was not included in the European delegation law. The executive preferred to postpone the issue, ruling out any possibility of transposition for the time being. This decision effectively leaves Italy lagging behind other European countries and risks opening up a new dispute with Brussels.
A question of democratic civilisation
The government’s decision is not entirely surprising: on several occasions, members of the majority have expressed scepticism about legislation that, according to the centre-right, could limit the freedom to protect one’s personal reputation in court. But the stakes are quite different.
SLAPPs do not concern the right to defend oneself, but rather the distorted use of the right to sue as a tool of intimidation and threat. And the European directive, despite its limitations, represented a step towards a more balanced justice system and a more transparent democracy.
The refusal to transpose the anti-SLAPP Directive is not just a technical choice but a political message: press freedom continues to be perceived as a problem for a particular category, rather than a question of democratic civilisation.
In a country where many journalists still choose self-censorship for fear of a million-pound lawsuit, giving up a European protection mechanism means accepting that economic and political power can continue to exert pressure through the courts.
‘It is a missed opportunity to defend a fundamental principle,’ reiterated the Order of Journalists. And it is not just a problem for journalists: it is a problem for all citizens who have the right to free, critical and independent information.
