Last Friday Prof. UAM Katarzyna Klafkowska – Waśniowska, dr. Miłosz Malaga from Jean Monnet Chair and Michalina Kowala from Doctoral School of Social Sciences AMU participated in the international conference: Power, media pluralism and democracy. Regulatory, legal or extra-legal responses. The conference was held in Warsaw on 16 and 17 November 2023,  and co-organised by Center for Antitrust and Regulatory Studies from Warsaw University and Modern Bigness and Law & Tech network Utrecht University School of Law.

The conference focused on legal or regulatory responses to the challenges media landscape is facing, particularly concerning market diversity and political independence.

Prof. K. Klafkowska – Waśniowska in a panel chaired by prof. Mirosław Wyrzykowski, discussed the so called  from the art. 17 of Media Freedom Act proposal and its relations to the Digital Services Act.

The objective of the presentation: “Media privilege”  imbalance of power and institutional guarantees for media pluralism was to demonstrate how this regulatory response relies on existing, or potential, institutional guarantees for media quality and media pluralism, and to reflect on the normative framework and practical implications for media activities outside audiovisual sector.

Dr. M. Malaga and M. Kowala participated at the final panel of the conference, dedicated to Competition Law and Media Pluralism, and chaired by Prof. Maciej Bernatt and Robert Gago from Greenberg Taurig.  In their contribution on Competition law to remedy media pluralism concerns? the speakersfocused on the analysis ofwhether specific interventions (such as commitments, interim measures or prohibitions of transactions) in competition law may serve achieving goals of non-economic nature, in particular regarding media pluralism.

The conference, had a unique character as it linked together the perspectives usually studied separately by public law, human rights and market-oriented scholars. This interdisciplinary approach enabled a fruitful discussion on the legal safeguards of media pluralism at the EU and national level.