EU ministers clash over media defamation rules

European Union justice and interior ministers clashed in Brussels today over three-year old plans to streamline legal rules across the 25-nation bloc on liability and defamation involving media, which could cause problems for freedom of expression rights.

Austrian Justice Minister Karin Gastinger said the EU ministers were deadlocked over a complex legal proposal to set up rules of mutual recognition of national liability laws and ones dealing with defamation of private citizens, public figures or religious icons in the press.