23 international and national press associations and collective management organizations, including the OSDEL, call on Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to ensure the full implementation of the Press Publishers' Right, so that publishers receive fair compensation from major digital platforms. They warn that the exclusion of indirect income from the calculation of remuneration will undermine the sustainability of the Press in our country and, by extension, the Republic.
The text of the letter states:
Honorable Prime Minister,
The signatories to this letter represent international organizations, national associations and collective management organizations (CMOs), which represent press publishers in Europe, Australia and South Africa.
Greece, the birthplace of democracy, has long preserved the fundamental pillars of democratic society, among which a free and independent press holds a prominent place. Today, however, the press – and therefore democracy itself – faces unprecedented challenges on a global level, mainly due to the dominance of very large technology companies (such as Google, Microsoft and Meta) in the dissemination of information.
One of the most serious challenges is the so-called "value gap" that has emerged in the relationship between the press and online platforms. The latter exploit publishers' content (through search engines, news aggregators, user profiling, etc.), securing a significant part of their revenues without permission and without fair compensation. This practice directly undermines publishers' ability to generate a reasonable income from their work, further reducing their advertising revenues and putting at risk the sustainability of the news activity.
To resolve this issue, the European Union has adopted the new Press Publishers' Right, which provides the necessary legal framework for claiming fair remuneration. Greece has incorporated this right into its national law (Law 4996/2022 of the Ministry of Culture) and established a mediation mechanism, with the National Telecommunications and Post Commission (EETT) having assumed the responsibility of issuing a regulation that will determine the criteria and methodology for calculating publishers' remuneration.
However, we have been informed by our Greek partners that EETT is considering excluding the indirect revenues of large platforms from this calculation. Such an exclusion would drastically reduce the remuneration due to publishers, limiting it to a negligible fraction of the platforms’ enormous revenues. This would defeat the purpose of both European and national legislation: the value gap would be perpetuated and the viability of the press in Greece would be seriously jeopardized.
Furthermore, this approach, which in practice is identical to the platforms' objectives, contradicts the decisions of the French Competition Authority in corresponding cases. In its decision of 15 March 2024 (Case 24-D-03), the Authority expressly acknowledged that indirect revenues should also be taken into account. It also ignores the conclusions of numerous international studies, which demonstrate that the platforms' total revenues are directly and indirectly linked to the content of the press publishers (e.g. Fehradvice, March 2023, Switzerland; Germany, June 2025; Holden, Mateen, Schiffin and Tabakovic, USA, October 2023).
Accordingly, we respectfully call on you, Mr. Prime Minister, to ensure that the Greek regulatory framework fully achieves its intended purpose: the guarantee of fair and effective remuneration for publishers, in accordance with European law and international best practices. Only in this way will the economic viability of the press be ensured and, by extension, the protection of one of the fundamental pillars of our Democracy.
Thank you for your attention and we remain at your disposal for any further communication.
Sincerely,
The signatories of this letter
EMMA, the European Magazine Media Association, Belgium
ENPA, the European Newspaper Publishers' Association (ENPA), Belgium
IFRRO – The International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations, Belgium
News Media Europe, Belgium
PDLN – Press Database and Licensing Network, United Kingdom
EPC – European Publishers Council, Belgium
Alliance de la Presse d'Information Générale, France
BPCMO – Baltic Press Publishers' Collective Management Organisation, Estonia
CEDRO – CENTRO ESPAÑOL DE DERECHOS REPROGRÁFICOS EGDPI, Spain
CFC, France
Copyright Agency, Australia
Corinth Media, Germany
DARLO – Dramatic, Artistic and Literary Rights Organization (Pty) Limited, South Africa
DPCMO – Danish Press Publications Collective Management Organisation, Denmark
DVP – La Société des droits voisins de la Presse, France
FIEG – Italian Federation of Newspapers and Magazines Publishers, Italy
L2P – License2Publish, Belgium
Hungarian Newspaper Publishers Association, Hungary
OSDEL – Organization for the Collective Management of Works of Speech, Hellas
Repropol – Stowarzyszenie Dziennikarzy i Wydawców, Poland
SLPV – Správce licensovních práv vydavatelů, zs, Czech Republic
SPCMO – Swedish Publishers Collective Management Organisation, Sweden
Stichting OPR – Stichting Organisatie voor Persuitgeversrecht, Netherlands
OSDEL: 73 Themistokleous, Athens 106 83, tel.: 2103849100, osdel.gr
