One of the biggest legal events of the past week for Ukraine in terms of European integration was the publication of the European Commission's annual report on Ukraine. In it, the EU assessed the state of freedom of expression in Ukraine as "between a certain and moderate level of preparedness".

Despite the war-related restrictions in this area, the commission found that "some progress" had been made, particularly in terms of the financial independence of the public broadcaster, transparency of media ownership, and journalists' access to information. At the same time, the report clearly states that "cases of strategic lawsuits against public participation ( SLAPP lawsuits ) related to investigative journalism remain a problem in Ukraine.".

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The EU sees concrete progress in the creation of a special working group under the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech in June 2025 to develop effective mechanisms to counter SLAPP lawsuits. Now the working group is actively working on the necessary legislative changes.

For Ukraine, the key, minimal task in countering so-called SLAPP lawsuits (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) is to harmonize our legislation with the new EU Directive 2024/1069.

This document aims to protect journalists, activists and all those involved in public discussions from obviously unfounded and unfair lawsuits.

For this to work, it is important to successfully implement this European protection mechanism in the Ukrainian legal system, which means solving a double problem:

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European integrationfreedom of speechlegislationlegal actioneuropean integration