EUROPEAN MEDIA GOVERNANCE : EUROPEAN NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS’ ASSOCIATION (ENPA)

The European Newspaper Publishers’ Association (ENPA) is a non-profit association currently representing 5100 national, regional and local newspapers. These daily, weekly and Sunday titles are published in 28 countries where ENPA’s members are operating in their national markets. ENPA members are the national newspaper publishers’ associations which are representing the interests of the newspapers in their respective countries.

Every day more than 120 million copies of newspapers are sold and read by over 235 million citizens in Europe. Circulation of the smallest local newspaper is than 1000 copies while the biggest national title has a circulation of almost 4 million copies.

Newspapers on line are visited millions of times every day. Newspapers’ trusted brands, pluralistic and diverse content and quality journalism make the online editions the most visited sites in many countries. The impact of revenue streams from advertising of online newspapers and other online services is becoming more and more significant.

Of the newspaper publishing companies, 97 per cent of the newspaper publishing companies are small-and medium-size companies (SMEs). However, 0.8 per cent of newspapers companies employing more than 250 people account for more than half the turnover of the sector. Newspaper publishing is the most important sub-sector within the different publishing sectors: newspapers represent 36.8 per cent compared to the share of the journals and periodicals (31.9 per cent), books (24 per cent) and other publications (6.7 per cent).

Role of ENPA

The ENPA works on a number of key areas of European policy and legislation which have a fundamental effect on the day-to-day running of the operations for local, regional and national newspaper publishers (Freedom of the press, media pluralism including cultural diversity and cross-media ownership, VAT (value added tax) and newspaper sales, intellectual property rights with an emphasis on copyrights and related rights, commercial communications including rules on advertising, distribution of newspapers, environment and newspapers, social policy and newspaper companies as employers).

Being the main advocate of European Newspaper publishers, ENPA pursues the following objectives:

1. To enable the European press to speak with one voice towards the European Union and its institutions.
2. To act as a central point of contact and dialogue between the representatives of the European Union institutions and ENPA’s members.
3. To promote the exchange between ENPA’s member countries and associations therein, of all information relating to newspaper publishing.
4. To collect and share information pertaining to newspapers and publishing companies in Europe, and to circulate this information to its members, to the EU institutions and to the general public when necessary.
5. To preserve and promote fundamental rights and in particular freedom of the press as a cornerstone of democracy, as well as commercial freedom as the precondition for economic viability.
6. To present and defend the interests of the press industry as far as any legislative or policy issues that might have an influence on the role, the freedom or the economic role of newspapers in Europe.
7. To work towards a publisher-friendly legislative and economic environment without undue restrictions or obligations.
8. To support access to information as well as pluralism and diversity of media.
9. To serve as a service-oriented and comprehensive information network for its members from which officials of the EU institutions and of Member States can also benefit.

ENPA is a transparent association which receives all of its financial resources from its members i.e. national newspaper publishers’ associations which in turn are funded by the newspaper companies. ENPA does not receive any contributions from any other sources (e.g. the EU institutions) to finance its operations and activities.