Curran made his remarks while visiting Estonia, meeting with Minister of Culture Heidy Purga (Reform).

The minister plans to present new funding options for national broadcaster ERR, as the current funding model violates the European Media Freedom Act. Curran also noted that ERR is underfunded, relative to other European public broadcasters.

The EBU director stressed the need for strong, independent, and adequately funded media to support democracy, also praising Estonia's press freedom and ERR's high trust levels.

Europe as a whole faces unprecedented challenges, he said, including the political convergence of major tech companies, the situation in the U.S., and the rise of misinformation.

"For me, public service media is needed more than ever, and a strong European presence, and also a national presence," Curran told ERR.

At the same time it must be free from governmental interference.

"Public service media is not a biscuit factory, it's not a manufacturing factory, it's an organization where journalists question politicians, question them hard, and you can't have a situation where those same politicians are making decisions on an annual basis as to how much funding the broadcaster gets," he added, noting that "the two big issues are ensuring the independence, and making sure that the funding is adequate."

Curran said he "also on the minister that the European Media Freedom Act will demand that there is adequate sustainable funding and that that funding is independent, and I impressed that some countries will be called out for breach of the European Media Freedom Act."

For Curran and the EBU, the exact type of funding model a member state has is less important than how independent the broadcaster is.

"So that's a key thing for us: Is there sustainability? Is there regular growth?/…/ and is that independent of government decisions on an annual basis and government whims. Governments will say 'we want flexibility.' [But] flexibility undermines independence."

Curran called for progress to be made on the new media law "which has been worked on for quite a while, and seems to be stuck."

Ultimately, "We want a strong Estonian public service broadcaster that is promoting Estonian culture, that is giving Estonian people news that they obviously trust, and we want to see that funded, and funded properly, and we want to see it independent," he said.

On the plus side, Curran praised ERR for having "one of the highest audience reaches of any of our members" and "one of the highest trust levels for its news of any of our members."

"We have 157 members and ERR is in the top 10 in terms of trust for news."

The full interview, which can be watched by clicking the video player above, also looked at the significance of new media and how public broadcasters need to adapt to that, not stay away from it.

Noel Curran is an Irish former television producer and journalist who has been the director-general of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since October 2017.

The European Media Freedom Act aims to protect media pluralism and independence in the EU, ensuring cross-border media operations and safeguarding editorial independence, journalistic sources, and public service media.

It also enhances media ownership transparency, protects against unjustified online content removal, and requires assessments of media market concentrations' impact on pluralism.

The Ministry of Culture started a consultation process almost a year ago, to amend the domestic Estonian Public Broadcasting Act to take into account the EU act.

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