Financial Support Announced for Press amid COVID-19 Crisis

Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel announced yesterday at a parliamentary session that the press would be eligible for new financial support in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Wednesday 6 May 2020, the government cabinet approved the establishment of extraordinary compensation to support members of the press in the current context. The measure was proposed by Prime Minister and Minister for Communications and Media, Xavier Bettel, who announced the news during his declaration at Tuesday's parliamentary session.

Like many other sectors, the current health crisis has had an impact on the press, particularly following the significant drop in advertising revenue. Paradoxically, the crisis has highlighted the importance of professional journalism to fight against the phenomena of dis- and misinformation, according to the Communications Ministry.

In this context, Xavier Bettel declared that the government aims to “maintain, with this new allowance, an environment favourable to quality journalism. It is clear that, especially on online platforms, the health crisis goes hand in hand with an 'infodemia', an overabundance of content, a large and potentially dangerous part of which is false information. Today, more than ever, professional journalism producing verified information and based on ethical standards is vital”.

The new allowance covers general information publications that have an editorial team made up of at least two professional journalists. It consists of a sum of €5,000 per journalist linked to the publisher by an open-ended contract and who did not benefit from partial unemployment or family leave between 15 March and 15 May 2020.

The terms of the new regulations are available at https://guichet.public.lu/en/entreprises/sectoriel/medias/indemnite-editeurs-publications-covid.html. The information is currently available exclusively in French, but will soon be published in English and German, as well.