Democracy was at the heart of President Von Der Leyen’s State of the Union address. From foreign propaganda to conspiracy theories, she painted the picture of a democratic structure under immense strain, she called it ‘cognitive warfare.’ Against this, she highlighted what Europe needs to defend itself, and that is ‘access to reliable, independent information’.

Press publishers could not agree more. Europe’s democratic resilience and information integrity depend on journalism that is independent, pluralistic and held to editorial standards. We invest heavily in journalists, factchecking, technology and innovation to produce that content every day, in all official and minority EU languages. Today more than ever, a strong news media sector is an integral part of the European Union’s democratic infrastructure.

On artificial intelligence, the President pointed to Europe’s advantage, its world-class industries that sit on the highest-quality data, “a precious European treasure” that can power Europe’s AI infrastructures. News content is part of that treasure. It has proven to hold considerable value for large language models, and it is central to Europe’s ambitions for a safe, reliable and high-quality AI ecosystem.

Press publishers are and wish to continue being, part of this competitiveness agenda. As partners for AI, we can supply high-quality material needed to develop it, on terms that also protect the sustainability of our sector.

President Von Der Leyen highlighted the need to responsible uptake of AI and increased competitiveness. Neither is possible without a functioning licensing market, and that market cannot exist under current conditions. The threats posed to media sustainability accumulate on three fronts: first, the unauthorised use of our intellectual property; second, competition, the substitution of journalism through AI; and thirdly, hallucinated content, where our name is attached to information we never published.

Copyright is the promise that publishers’ investments in independent journalism are worth remuneration. However, the repeated, illicit use of our content for training purposes and beyond, is breaking this promise. Press publishers cannot exercise their intellectual property rights in an environment where they cannot see how, by whom and for what purpose their content is being used.

Moreover, competition and substitution. Search engines and browsers are shifting from neutral access points to closed answer environments, where journalistic content may be used, summarised, ranked or substituted without any corresponding return of traffic or remuneration.

Finally, hallucinated content with legitimate title sources marked beneath it, underlines the very risks of misinformation the President highlighted.

Technological advancements are now accelerating the imbalance to a degree that is existential to press publishers. But it can still be fixed. As the President herself said it: “I am aware that many perceive the power of big tech as overwhelming. And impossible to roll back. I disagree.” And so do we, restoring the balance between big tech and press media is no less possible.

We therefore urge the Commission to act with ambition and put forward legislative proposals that give back the press publishers the control over their content and enables them to exercise their rights. This calls for practical, legally certain and timely outcomes: meaningful transparency, respected opt-outs and other rights reservations, functioning licensing markets, and effective enforcement, with the burden of proof on the AI providers, not on the rightsholders.

For Europe to win against the cognitive warfare, it has now named, it must protect the journalistic content that stands on the frontline of it.