Overview

• The European Commission’s 2025 Rule of Law Report finds Italy made limited, reduced or no progress on EU recommendations to regulate conflicts of interest, establish a national register of lobbyists and tighten party financing rules.
• The report notes there has been no advancement on defamation reform or protection of professional secrecy, and it warns that journalists continue to face obstacles in their work.
• Italy’s 2021 Cartabia law centralised judicial disclosures and the December Costa amendment now forbids journalists from quoting arrest warrants verbatim, further restricting court reporting.
• The unprecedented use of Israeli firm Paragon’s spyware against government-critical reporters is cited as a violation of professional secrecy and national norms.
• The Italian government argues that these measures balance the presumption of innocence with freedom of information even as Brussels ties future funding to rule-of-law compliance.