CnaM publishes winning TCD media essay
Media watchdog Coimisiún na Meán (CnaM) has published an essay on EU media regulation by a student in the postgraduate LL.M programme in Trinity College.
The move is part of an initiative, in partnership with the Trinity College School of Law, aimed at promoting public debate about media policy and practice.
The 2026 winning essay is entitled ‘Media Freedom as Market Freedom? The questionable legal basis of the European Media Freedom Act’.
It was written by Aleksandra Jabłkowska, and is edited by Dr Ewa Komorek, adjunct assistant professor, Trinity College Dublin.
Common framework
Applied from August 2025, the act, known as EMFA, establishes a common framework to protect media freedom and pluralism across the EU’s internal market on the basis of article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU).
The essay examines the debate between supporters of the act’s aims of protecting democracy and those who argue that the EU exceeded its competencies by invoking article 114, which is concerned mainly with the functioning of the EU’s internal market.
Jabłkowska argues that the legal basis of the act is “fundamentally misguided”.
EMFA’s ‘cultural’ purpose
“The EMFA's predominant purpose is cultural, not economic, and article 114 cannot bear this weight,” she states.
“Choosing an incorrect legal basis undermines legitimacy, institutional balance, and the rule of law within the union,” the essay argues.
Hungary has challenged the EMFA’s legal basis before the EU’s Court of Justice, seeking annulment of the regulation.