BIRN Conference Probes Democracy’s Pressure Points

Democracy is on a knife edge in Central and Southeast Europe as authoritarian alternatives enter the mainstream and populists erode vital checks and balances on power — not least free media.

That was the conclusion of a meeting of experts convened in Budapest by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network and ERSTE Foundation just days after EU elections that highlighted competing visions of democracy in Europe.

"The problem we are seeing right now in Europe is the decline of press freedom, but also something which goes hand in hand with politics - increasing authoritarianism," said Pauline Adès-Mével, head of the European Union and Balkan desk at Reporters Without Borders. "These two are linked and that is a problem."

Around 100 journalists, academics and activists gathered for the May 31 Reporting Democracy Conference, held to mark the launch of a new cross-border journalism platform covering the state of democracy in Visegrad Four countries and the Balkans.

BIRN and ERSTE teamed up to launch the Reporting Democracy platform in recognition of the fact that many of the issues undermining confidence in liberal democratic norms are cross-border in nature.

For that reason, the initiative provides grants for journalists across the region to do in-depth reporting on political, social and economic trends shaping the future of democracy.

Many of those trends came into focus during panel debates in Budapest designed to probe democracy's pressure points as well as the state of media freedom and the power of civic protest to affect change.

The sessions were streamed live and catch-up recordings are available below. Click here for the full agenda of the conference.

War of attrition

Political analysts explored the factors eroding...