Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-05-Speech-2-243"
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"en.20000905.13.2-243"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Veltroni, on behalf of the Italian radicals, I cannot support the positive view you have expressed of the report under discussion on the Communication from the Commission on the guidelines for the Community's audiovisual policy in the digital age. I cannot support your view because the communication is a reproduction of the old European TV and cinema cliché: direct public intervention through State agencies, welfarism and disregard for the nature of the market, a cliché which is characterising the audiovisual sector more and more. All this has been dredged up and 'modernised' to suit the new digital age of multimedia convergence and the extraordinary spread of the Internet.
The impression therefore persists that European audiovisual companies are incapable of growing or standing on their own two feet and that users are incapable of discerning from among the vast amount of multimedia products on offer which products are better and most suited to their needs, as if past welfarism and paternalism had not been responsible for the difficult situation in which the sector finds itself today. Everybody – companies and users alike – would benefit from the freedom of choice provided by a bold opening of the market and State withdrawal.
Moving on to some specific points of the report under consideration. The regulation refers to the separation of infrastructures and content, serving up for content the old regulations once again. But what does this mean? Perhaps Mr Veltroni could enlighten us. It may be, for example, that the intention is to extend the law governing the press, including related contracts and the need to be registered in the register of journalists and to be certified, to on-line publications. In my view, this would be a serious error. Or to extend the current stifling TV regulations to all the other programmes which are broadcast via the Web. This would be a serious mistake, an illusion, for which the European companies and citizens would have to pay the price all over again. The boom of the Internet was made possible by the State's inability to curb it with a mass of bans and regulations. This was the right way for things to happen and it is right that they should remain that way.
With regard to intellectual property and copyright – another point covered by the report – I feel that it is pointless and damaging to the positive development of the Internet to strengthen the directive on copyright, as it is proposed to do. Remember the Napster and the New Tell cases. We consider that a critical revision of copyright ownership rights needs to be carried out in such a way as to facilitate and increase the transparency of the transmission of knowledge and products, and, on this point, the companies and the large corporations know that they will have to come to an agreement with the Web.
With regard to cinema, additional funding is requested for European cinema. As Mr Veltroni is aware, there is a 50-year-old battle going on in Italy between the liberals, Sturzo and Ernesto Rossi, and those who want to continue with cinema subsidies. We are of the opinion that the freedom of choice of the citizens to determine the success or failure of a film is also the best and most efficient way of ensuring the growth of the cinematographic sector. We have tabled an amendment calling for a cost/benefit analysis of what has been done to date.
Lastly, on the subject of the privatisation of television, we call for a revision of the Amsterdam protocol which is referred to here as if it is set in stone. The Financial Times has raised the issue of the privatisation of the jewel of European public television, the BBC.
Public television networks must be privatised or increasingly high licence fees will be imposed for new investments. If we want to maintain a public service, the television broadcasting right must be auctioned off between all the operators: programmes will then be more efficient and there will be a saving for license payers. I call upon you to consider the amendments we have tabled, which would change the intention of the report, following a system of aid incentives which has not worked in the past and will not work in the future either."@en1
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