Commissioner Viviane Reding met today Mr Hans-Ulrich Jörges, editor-in-chief of the German magazine Stern and initiator of the European Charter on Freedom of the Press. The Charter, which formulates the main values that public authorities should respect when dealing with journalists, was signed on 25 May by 48 European journalists from 19 countries.

The Charter aims to protect the press from government interference and ensure journalists' access to sources of information, and it has ben presented and handed over by Mr J örges today to Commissioner Viviane Reding who welcomed journalists' adoption of this first European Charter of Freedom of the Press.

Viviane Reding said that the Charter is an important reaffirmation of the basic values, including media pluralism, freedom of expression and information that underpin Europe's democratic traditions and are enshrined in fundamental legal texts, and that it is also a reminder that in order to have effective freedom of the press, public authorities have a role to play: they must be ready to protect freedom of expression and foster its development

The Charter's main concern is at last to unify Europe journalistically and to enable all our colleagues to invoke its principles if press freedom is violated. Its ten articles ten  outline basic principles that governments must respect when dealing with journalists, such as prohibition of censorship, free access to national and foreign media sources and freedom to gather and disseminate information. The Charter also emphasises the protection of journalists from being spied on and calls for an effective judiciary system safeguarding the rights of journalists.

So far, the Charter exists in eight languages (English, French, German, Danish, Croatian, Russian, Polish and Romanian) and is available online where interested journalists can sign it.

The idea of the Charter on Freedom of the Press was born in 2007, during a meeting between Commissioner Reding, Mr J örges and other editors-in-chief of European newspapers.

The publication of this Charter continues with the task of the Commission for community media initiatives, such as the Network of European broadcasters Euranet, the future of network television and the website of collection of articles presseurop.eu launched less a month.