On December 4, the MFC co-chairs Germany and Finland co-hosted an event with the OSCE at the OSCE Ministerial Council. The event, “No Security Without Media Freedom”, highlighted that strengthening media freedom is both a human rights obligation and a strategic requirement for comprehensive security. By bringing together Ministers, journalists, and media freedom experts, the event underscored that media freedom is not peripheral to security — it is a prerequisite for it in an era when information itself is increasingly contested.
The session was opened by H.E. Elina Valtonen, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland (MFC co-chair) and H.E. Ambassador Jan Braathu, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media.
The panel itself was moderated by Stephan Lenglinger, journalist of the Austrian public broadcaster ORF, and featured:
- Scott Griffen: Executive Director of International Press Institute (IPI)
- Marina Nord: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg
- Oleksiy Sorokin: Deputy Chief Editor, Kyiv Independent
Closing remarks were delivered by H.E. Susanne Schütz, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Germany to the OSCE.
