Employers of Hungary's opposition radio, the 'Klubradio' and their sympathizers hold a photo of Orbán reading 'take it to reason already breaks off on it your tooth' during a 2013 demonstration for the freedom of speech. | ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images Fourth Estate Hungary, ‘canary in the coal mine’ of EU press A report calls Hungary the “most egregious practitioner of controlled press.”

Press freedom in Europe — and specifically, Hungary — is in danger, according to a report released Tuesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The report states that while the EU maintains an outward commitment to press freedom, safeguards implemented are often cosmetic and offenders are seldom punished.

Case in point, according to the report and to CPJ members, is Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.

Since Orbán's nationalist Fidesz party took power in 2010, it has been accused by activists and journalists of meddling in newsrooms, imposing taxes and regulations unfairly on media outlets critical of the government, and taking control of the Media Council, which is supposedly independently elected.

According to Kati Marton, a Hungarian-American board member of the CPJ, Orbán's Hungary is the “most egregious practitioner of controlled press.”

"They are making it virtually impossible for journalists to do their job," Marton said.

The Hungarian government's practices have not escaped the notice of the European Commission, which has twice raised the possibility of sanctioning Budapest via Article 7, a clause in the treaty that could suspend a member state’s voting rights at the Commission if it is found in "serious and persistent breach" of treaty principles.

The CPJ said in their report, which was presented in Brussels Tuesday, that Article 7 should be reconsidered in Hungary's case. Press freedom is the "canary in the coal mine," according to Marton.

"This is about more than the press," said Marton, an author, journalist and the widow of former U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke. "When a country starts rolling back press freedoms, it never stops there."

When asked to comment on the CPJ report, the Hungarian Permanent Representation to the EU referred POLITICO to the Venice Commission's Opinion on Media Legislation of Hungary.

The opinion, released in June, said that while the country had made progress in recent years, it needs to continue to improve the situation of media freedom in the country.

Jean-Paul Marthoz, the Belgian journalist and activist who penned the CPJ report, warned that Hungary's suppression of the free press was a threat to Europe's democratic values.

“Hungary is the first ideological attempt to undo the liberal construct of Europe,” said Marthoz. “Orbán has said very clearly that he is against liberal democracy, that his models are Erdoğan or Putin.”

The CPJ made a series of recommendations to EU leaders that would increase accountability among member states, including more openness in negotiations and the creation of a commission that could monitor member states’ compliance to human rights standards. Marthoz told POLITICO he believed a system with this aim could be created within six months, if key leaders cooperate.