Director of the Media and Data Directorate Giuseppe Abbamonte wrote to the Minister of Culture about Estonia's compliance with the act, seeking "clarification" and pointing out several discrepancies.

Regarding ERR, he said Estonia falls short of Article 5 – Safeguards for the independent functioning of public service media providers.

While positively highlighting transparent funding, Abbamonte also pointed out that the current system, with the parliament setting budgets annually, could allow for political influence.

"Based on the information at my disposal, it appears that funding for public service media may not be predictable or adequate, especially since the Estonian Public Broadcasting Act does not seem to provide for guaranteed funding, and the procedure does not seem to be independent of governmental influence," he said.

The official also pointed out the need for additional protection of journalistic sources and allocation of public funds for advertising.

Four-year framework

Abbamonte said he would like to see more information about the planned amendments to the Public Broadcasting Act, which is currently being discussed in the Riigikogu.

Ministers are discussing shifting the one-year funding model to a four-year outlook.

The minister of culture has said it plans to present a four-year plan for ERR during the national budget strategy discussions, indicating the amount of support for each year. The Riigikogu would continue to approve the annual budget separately each year.

The culture minister would also sign a four-year framework agreement with ERR, setting out the funding and the conditions.

According to the drafters of the bill, this would help strengthen the independence of public broadcasting and meet the requirements of the European Media Freedom Act.

Andres Jõesaar, media adviser at the Ministry of Culture and former chair of ERR's supervisory board, said if the amendments are adopted by the Riigikogu, the four-year agreement should bring Estonia into compliance with the Media Freedom Act.

At the same time, Jõesaar noted that the amendment does not resolve the broader issue of ERR's overall funding nor the question of what kind of public service ERR is expected to provide.

Although private media representatives have expressed the opinion that ERR should not be publishing online news, Jõesaar believes this is unavoidable in today's world and that news should be accessible to everyone—especially now, when, in his view, some news portals have become politicized.

According to ERR board chair Erik Roose, the four-year agreement alone will not solve the broadcaster's problems. He supports a funding model that sets ERR's budget as a percentage of the state budget or Estonia's GDP.

Roose said that the current situation, where budget freezes are anticipated for the next four years, certainly does not ensure sufficient funding for public broadcasting.

In his view, sufficient funding would require an additional 20–30 percent—roughly €10–20 million. This year, ERR's total budget was €55.5 million.

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