Follow the Money won the 2025 Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism for exposing the hidden financial networks enabling Russia’s sanction-evading oil trade. The investigation, coordinated by the platform for investigative journalism “Follow the Money” in collaboration with media from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, revealed how Western shipowners earned over 6 billion dollars selling 230 aging tankers to Russia's shadow fleet.

The Prize rewards on a yearly basis outstanding journalism that promotes or defends the core principles and values of the European Union, such as human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law, and human rights.

The award ceremony takes place each year around 16 October, the date Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated. The prize and the €20 000 prize money demonstrate the European Parliament’s strong support for investigative journalism and the importance of a free press.

Over the last few years, Parliament has warned about attempts both in the EU and beyond to undermine media pluralism. Parliament has repeatedly denounced attempts to limit media freedom, and especially attacks against journalists, in any form and wherever they may come from. MEPs were instrumental in the effort that culminated in March 2024 in the European Media Freedom Act, which protects media freedom and journalists' safety and independence. They also pushed for years for rules to tackle malicious litigation, aiming to protect journalists and civil society from strategic lawsuits seeking to silence critical voices, and the EU’s anti-SLAPP directive was finally approved in February 2024.