A Luxembourg publisher warns press freedom cannot be taken for granted

Luxembourg consistently ranks among the freest countries in the world for journalists. That, one of the Grand Duchy's best-known publishers argues, is precisely the reason not to grow complacent.

On 25 June, Mike Koedinger — the founder and chief executive of Maison Moderne, the independent house behind the business titles Paperjam and Delano — formally launched the Mike Koedinger Foundation at Mudam, Luxembourg's modern-art museum on the Kirchberg plateau. He cast it as a deliberate act of defence at a moment when, he contends, credible information and democratic debate can no longer be assumed, even in a stable, prosperous democracy.

La création de la Mike Koedinger Foundation est un acte de résistance et d'engagement civique à une époque où l'intégrité des médias, la pensée indépendante et le dialogue démocratique sont soumis à des pressions croissantes.

The foundation's creation, he said, is "an act of resistance and civic engagement at a time when media integrity, independent thinking and democratic dialogue are under growing pressure." The Luxembourg-based body, which says it will work across Europe under the banner "Safeguarding Media Integrity. Strengthening Democratic Resilience," rests on a proposition Koedinger put simply: "Une démocratie saine passe par une information crédible, un esprit critique et un journalisme indépendant" — a healthy democracy depends on credible information, critical thinking and independent journalism.

The warning behind a strong ranking

Koedinger's caution lands against a paradox. By the numbers, Luxembourg is a press-freedom success story. In the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), it has climbed from 20th place in 2023 to 11th in 2024 and 9th in 2026, with a score of 84.14 — well inside the band RSF considers a "good" situation, behind perennial leader Norway.

Yet the trajectory is not uniformly upward, and RSF itself has spent two years warning that the foundations are eroding. Its 2025 index singled out economic fragility as a leading threat to press freedom; its 2026 edition declared global press freedom at a 25-year low, with the economic indicator at its worst level since the ranking began and the worldwide situation rated "difficult" for the first time. Even Luxembourg, whose overall score improved, slipped in the safety sub-indicator from first place to third, a reminder that strong headline rankings can mask softening ground.

A small market, tightly held

The structural argument is harder to wave away. Luxembourg has one of the most concentrated media markets in Europe — a direct consequence of its small size. Three groups dominate the landscape:

RTL, the country's main broadcaster, ultimately controlled by Germany's Bertelsmann;

Mediahuis Luxembourg, which absorbed the long-dominant Saint-Paul group and publishes the Luxemburger Wort;

Editpress, behind the Tageblatt, Le Quotidien and the free daily L'essentiel.

Luxembourg is also one of the few EU member states without a national merger-control law aimed at curbing cross-media concentration, according to the Euromedia Ownership Monitor. The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom rates the country's media pluralism at "medium risk."

Pluralism in print has been sustained largely by one of Europe's most generous public-subsidy regimes. Under rules cleared by the European Commission, eligible outlets receive a base of €200,000 plus €30,000 for each accredited journalist every year. In 2024, Editpress titles drew around €4.4 million — more than 40% of total press aid — and Mediahuis Luxembourg roughly €2.5 million. That money keeps titles alive, but it also binds a plural press to public funding and political goodwill, a dependency critics say leaves the sector exposed when budgets tighten or politics turns.

Not yet in crisis — and that is the point

The launch paired Koedinger with Dr Ayala Panievsky, a media researcher and author of The New Censorship: How the War on the Media Is Taking Us Down, in conversation with the veteran RTL journalist Caroline Mart. Panievsky argued that contemporary censorship rarely announces itself, working instead through coordinated online harassment, abusive lawsuits and state propaganda dressed up as journalism. "There cannot be democracy without a common set of facts we can then debate," she told the audience.

Asked which countries still offered favourable conditions for journalism, Panievsky said Luxembourg was, "so far," her preference — while warning against complacency and urging governments to reinforce institutions and safeguards before a crisis arrives rather than after.

That is the uncomfortable timing of Koedinger's intervention. Luxembourg is not Hungary or Slovakia; its reporters work without fear of imprisonment or violence, enjoy good access to officials and benefit from constitutional protection for press freedom. The government has pledged to strengthen press aid, improve access to information and shield journalists from so-called SLAPP lawsuits, and Luxembourg hosted a conference on journalist safety in June 2026. The bet behind the new foundation is that the moment to defend those conditions is precisely while they still hold — and that a country near the top of the rankings has the most to lose from assuming it always will be.