EditEuractiv becomes Rapporteur: Brussels media shifts toward paid readers as old franchise network goes independent
As a former franchise partner of Euractiv, EUalive will stay committed to free quality content rather than a paywall
After more than a quarter of a century under the Euractiv name, the Brussels-based EU affairs outlet was rebranded as Rapporteur at an event on Monday night, 28 September 2026, at Bozar.
The change, announced by CEO René Moerland after Mediahuis’s 2023 acquisition, marks a sharper turn toward a subscription-driven model for specialised Brussels journalism.
The name “Rapporteur” – EU parliamentary jargon for the MEP who steers a file – had already been used for the outlet’s morning politics newsletter since 2025. The full rebrand completes a multi-year rebuild: a newsroom in which most of the former Euractiv journalists have been replaced by fugitives from Politico.eu and other outlets, reporting aimed at competing with Politico Europe, and a business model that treats paying subscribers as “the readers who count”.
In May 2023, Euractiv was acquired by Mediahuis, the Antwerp-based media group that publishes De Standaard, NRC and the Irish Independent.”
The old Euractiv, under its founder Christophe Leclercq, described itself as pro-European, although critical of EU institutions. Under its new ownership, the outlet dropped this editorial mission.
Moerland has told audiences that, in the relationship between media and readers, the subscribers are the ones who matter. The parent company presents the move as a bet on “deep human reporting” focused on European decision-making rather than a global news brand. He also announced that the company had given up European projects as source of financing.
That commercial logic also ended the old Euractiv franchise network. Instead of licensed national partners, the Brussels operation now relies more on freelance correspondents. The former partner sites have gone their own way:
– Euractiv Bulgaria became EUalive.bg
– Euractiv Slovakia became euBrief
– Euractiv Czechia became Update.eu
– Euractiv Poland became Focus Europe Poland
– Euractiv Italy became Focus Europe Italy
– Euractiv Romania became Espress.ro
These titles, and some more, later grouped under a looser Focus Europe cooperation. The split was already visible since 2025, when the Brussels company wound down the long-standing partner arrangements.
The episode illustrates a wider split in EU-specialised media. One path is a tighter, paid, Brussels-centric product aimed at officials, lobbyists and professionals who will subscribe. The other is the older Euractiv tradition of free, multilingual, nationally rooted coverage.
EUalive will stay on that second path: independent, journalist-owned, and committed to free quality content rather than a paywall. Whether Rapporteur’s subscriber model and the successor national sites can both thrive will be one of the tests of how European policy journalism is financed in the years ahead.
CEO René Moerland announces the name change at Bozar event, 28 September 2026 [Photo credit: Bartek Lachowski on LinkedIn]
Updated: September 29, 2026 - 06:51
