Robert Abela’s propaganda meets reality check

Labour promised it would make Malta the best in Europe.  They’re still desperately trying to pretend they’ve fulfilled that promise.

Yet here we are, humiliated once more.  The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom has just published its 2026 Monitoring Media Pluralism report – and Malta is one of the two worst nations in Europe. Only two out of the EU’s 27 nations were red: Hungary and Malta. All the other nations are green, yellow or maybe amber.  But Malta is red, indicating serious problems with press freedom.

The Media Pluralism Monitor is a diagnostic tool that provides a comparative perspective on media freedom and editorial independence across EU countries, as well as a longitudinal analysis of the risks to media freedom in each country over time.

It looks at 20 key indicators, including the protection of freedom of expression, the right to information, journalistic protection, the independence of national regulatory authorities, the political independence of the media, and the editorial autonomy and independence of public service media.

The EU mean risk score is 49%.  Sweden and Germany, the two countries with the least risk to media freedom, score 26% and 30%, respectively.  Malta is at 71%.  Labour has managed to take Malta into that exclusive club of three – Hungary, Cyprus and Malta – the worst three countries for media freedom. That’s some achievement.

Prime Minister Robert Abela bragged that “the government had advanced legislative proposals to entrench press freedom in the Constitution and give journalists “stronger safeguards against harassment and intimidation”.

He boasted that Malta was one of the first countries to transpose the EU anti-SLAPP legislation. Yet, international press freedom organisations have called him out.

Abela stated that his government was committed to ensuring journalism in Malta continued to thrive, claiming that his media reform prioritised the protection of journalists, freedom of expression and professional integrity. Well, if that’s the case, it’s not working.  In fact, Malta, apart from Slovakia, was the country that had deteriorated the most in just the last year among all EU nations.

In the area of the media’s political independence, Malta moved up five percentage points within the risk band in just 12 months. In freedom of expression, which Abela bragged he was protecting, Malta fared the second worst, again after Hungary – when it was still under the authoritarian rule of Viktor Orban.

Malta has practically fared worst in all areas – from fundamental protections, to market plurality, to political independence. Malta went from high risk to very high risk mainly due to increased pressure on editorial independence and the influence of the state and political power over public service media.  In this area, Malta scored 79%, nearly tied with Hungary at 80%.

For comparison, Germany is at 17%, the Netherlands at 19% and Estonia at 22%.

That report is a wake-up call.  It demonstrates clearly and categorically the desperate situation Labour has brought us to.  It reveals how hollow Abela’s claims are.

The report highlights how Malta went from high risk to very high risk when it comes to the protection of the right to information, mainly due to the repeated rejection of Freedom of Information requests.  In particular, the report exposes Abela’s refusal to publish his ministers’ asset declarations.

It exposes Abela’s shameful abolition of the requirement for ministers to submit declarations and his removal of the obligation on MPs to declare assets held by their spouses. Abela claimed that his new system would give “a higher level of transparency”. It seems the Centre for Media Pluralism wasn’t buying his nonsense.

While Abela bragged that “Malta was first in the EU to have transposed the anti-SLAPP directive” and that his government was “ a catalyst of change in favour of the best interests of journalists”, the report lambasted Abela for shooting down all the Opposition’s proposals to amend his anti-SLAPP legislation.

It condemned Malta’s anti-SLAPP legislation for focusing only on cross-border lawsuits while completely ignoring domestic ones.   He even had the cheek to tell the OSCE media freedom representative that his draft media laws offered “the highest level of protection to journalists and the media sector overall ever given in Malta’s history”. This was contested by international press freedom organisations.

The chasm between what Abela tells his loyal supporters and the reality revealed by reputable international media institutions couldn’t be wider.  Abela bluffs that Malta is the best.

European institutions such as the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom demonstrate that Malta is among the worst, at least with regard to media freedom.  Only Orban’s Hungary fared worse.  And even that is likely to change.

With Orban deposed and a new Hungarian government intent on reversing his authoritarian measures, Hungary’s media freedom is expected to get better. Under Abela, Malta keeps getting worse.