Journalists from Portugal filed a complaint with the Ombudsman against the Government. “Formal obligation to answer editorially to the political power”

Journalists' representatives believe that the new governance model imposed on the official Lusa press agency increases the risk of interference from the Executive.

The Union of Journalists (SJ) in Portugal announces in a statement that it filed a complaint with the Ombudsman against the Government on Monday, considering that the new statutes of the official Portuguese news agency Lusa “endanger the constitutional principles of freedom of information”, affecting the rights of journalists.

In the complaint, SJ believes that the changes introduced by the company's governance model, enshrined in the new statutes published on January 28, 2026, increase the risks of external interference in the agency, especially of political influence and control over the editorial line, which contravenes both constitutional provisions and European law.

“The amendments contravene the protection of independence that the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic confers on journalists, as it also happens in the case of the Journalist's Statute, and also violate European law, by not complying with the rules set out in Regulation (EU) 2024/1083 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the freedom of the media, with regard to the protection of editorial independence and the independent operation of public service media institutions,” the SJ press release states.

The main change by the state denounced by the union is that the Government directly appoints the management of the press agency, which increases political influence. At the same time, the newly established Consultative Council is too politicized and unbalanced.

• “The statutes also create a new governance body, the Advisory Council, which has, among other things, the task of ruling on compliance with the contract for the provision of the agency's news and information service of public interest, of issuing prior (non-binding) opinions on the appointments made by the Government to the Board of Directors and on the appointment of the Director/Director of Information by the Board of Directors, as well as to rule on any other subject related to agency, at the request of the Board of Directors or on its own initiative”.
• “The Consultative Council consists of 13 members, of which 6 are appointed by politicians (3 by Parliament, 2 by the governments of the autonomous regions and 1 by the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities), 4 by employers' associations and 1 by the Portuguese public television RTP. Only 2 are appointed by the representative bodies of Lusa employees (1 by the Editorial Board and 1 by the Workers' Commission)”.

Also, according to the union, possible new collaborations between Lusa and the Portuguese public broadcaster RTP could create unfair advantages in the market.

The union believes that the new statutes, “by formally obliging (…) to answer editorially to the political power”, endanger the “fundamental rights of journalists”.

Thus, the Journalists' Union asks in the complaint addressed to the People's Advocate to recommend to the competent authorities either the correction of these rules or their cancellation; or, to request the Constitutional Court to declare them unconstitutional.