New Euronews boss: I don’t take orders from Orbán

The new CEO and editorial director of Euronews stressed he’d never accept a job that would be subject to a political leader’s orders amid employees’ fears his hire is tied to the TV channel owner’s financial and personal ties to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

Claus Strunz, who built his career with Bild, a German tabloid from Axel Springer group (which also owns POLITICO), was appointed mid-October after the brutal firing of Euronews CEO Guillaume Dubois.

His sharing of pro-Israel and anti-immigrant tweets on social media soon led to questions about a new direction of the newsroom among Euronews journalists, according to five employees — all granted anonymity to speak openly about the matter as were others quoted in the story — who have met with him in the past two days.

Concerns that the Euronews project could be turned into an EU-skeptic, right-leaning publication serving Orbán’s political interests have gone rampant since it was revealed that its owner Pedro Vargas David (CEO of the Alpac Capital fund, which acquired the network in 2022) has personal and financial ties with the Hungarian strongman and his close circle.

Once tipped as Europe’s answer to CNN, Euronews is a pan-European TV news channel, reaching 145 million people worldwide. 

The unexpected changes at the top of Euronews’ governance come as Euronews shifts toward a new strategy, according to 12 people familiar with the company, its owner Vargas David and the media landscape in Europe. 

Both Vargas David and Strunz met with Euronews’ employees in Brussels and Lyon, where they were grilled over questions about maintaining editorial independence.

“Strunz declarations on Twitter are worrying because this is not what you’d expect from the boss of Euronews, especially when he applauds [far right German party] AfD results as a sign of functioning democracy,” said Alexis Caraco, a staff representative employee from Lyon’s office. “But after meeting with him for two hours on Thursday afternoon, we feel reassured that he commits publicly to defend independent journalism… but we’ll wait and see.”

According to Caraco, Strunz stressed he was into journalism — not politics — and that his tweets shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

The conversation between Strunz and journalists from Brussels was described as frank, but not tense, by several attendees.

Journalists who had dug into Strunz’ old tweets challenged him on potential bias around coverage of the conflict in Gaza and migration — to which Strunz responded he wouldn’t impose his personal views on programming. On Orbán, he said he didn’t know anything about transactions allegedly involving the Hungarian premier’s close circle.

There is no evidence so far that Orbán is behind Dubois’ dismissal or Strunz’ appointment, nor that journalists have been ordered away from covering the Hungarian enfant terrible — their coverage is not particularly keen on Orban and many said they’ve never felt any pressure. 

The European Commission, which partly funds Euronews, previously said it has hired an external consultant to check their content and so far, no issues have come out of it. “Euronews is committed to respect the highest journalistic standards in all our contracts, including on editorial governance aspects,” a Commission spokesperson said.

Euronews, Strunz and Vargas David did not immediately reply to a request for comment. 

Money money money

The plan is to turn the media company into a more lucrative, niche and influential powerhouse headquartered right in front of the Commission, according to two former employees with knowledge of Euronews strategy.

Vargas David, now chairman of the board of Euronews, put forward €170 million from his fund to buy the media in 2022 at a time of great financial difficulties. The son of a center-right European People’s Party lawmaker, he was described as someone with genuine interest in European affairs by three people who have worked closely with him.

They also said he was first and foremost a businessman, marked by his years as a McKinsey consultant and as a manager trained at elite French business school INSEAD and the Harvard Kennedy School. As a fund manager, he takes losses seriously, surrounds himself with consultants on strategy (from McKinsey) or public affairs and doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to making tough calls, according to three people who have worked with him. 

In 2022, Euronews recorded losses of €15 million in a total revenue of €44 million. A big chunk of this came down to the progressive diminishing of EU subsidies: The Commission used to pour between €20 million to €23 million a year into the company until July 2024 as part of a three-year partnership. That support has dropped to €11 million a year and is now the subject of open competition through a public tender process. “The Commission’s cut in subsidies is a signal of doubts about Euronews,” a European senior executive from the media said.

This created a hole in the company’s revenues, which also has €30 million in losses linked to firing its employees from its original Lyon headquarters, a former employee said.

“At this stage, as a shareholder I would simply be asking myself, where the hell is growth going to come from?” said another senior executive working in the Brussels media world.

“This reliance on EU money means that the company did not sufficiently diversify its sources of income,” a former senior manager from Euronews said.

With TV audiences going down and EU-related news not proving widely popular, one method tried by Euronews to stay afloat is boosting its work as a content provider for state-sponsored outlets — resulting in special coverage on Azerbaijan tourism and the creation of a Qatar-based office. The network also seeks sponsorship from companies through events and looks for revenue from advertisers.

Internally, Euronews’ business activities have at times created friction with the newsroom, a former and a current employee said, citing questions over editorial independence.

Euronews previously denied any allegations in that sense.