Brussels, 21 October 2026
The European Commission has published three calls for proposals under the Creative Europe programme to support professional journalism and media pluralism, strengthen media resilience and promote media literacy.
The first call for proposals will fund journalism partnerships, promoting media collaborations and the work of local and public interest media, with a total amount of €14 million. The call includes two topics: the first, dedicated to ‘pluralism‘, is aimed at organisations that can set up and distribute funds to news media entities in sectors of particular relevance to democracy, such as local and public interest media. The second topic ‘collaboration‘ aims to support cross-border, collaborative proposals between news media organisations focusing on innovative business models and journalistic projects across Europe.
Under an additional call, €3.5 million will be dedicated to cross-border media literacy projects to help enhance citizens’ media literacy skills, allowing them to navigate the information space safely and confidently, and contributing to societal resilience against disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI).
Another call for proposals worth €3 million will boost an independent Europe-wide rapid response mechanism to monitor violations of press and media freedom in the EU, as well as in candidate countries. The monitoring will help generate better data and insights into threats to media pluralism and the safety of journalists and inform the annual Rule of Law reporting.
The European Democracy Shield provides reinforced financial support for independent and local journalism under the Media Resilience Programme, bridging current support to media with funding programmes proposed in the new Multiannual Financial Framework. The Commission proposed increased funding for the news media sector under the AgoraEU programme.
All three calls will open for applications on 22 October and are part of wider EU support for the news media sector.
Source – EU Commission