Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-04-Speech-3-347"
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"en.20001004.14.3-347"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one Sunday evening a fortnight ago in the South of France, Johan, aged 17, and Robert, aged 16, murdered their childhood friend, Romain, with a firearm and a baseball bat, for no reason or motive, just like on TV. Arrested very soon afterwards, they told the police, “It’s funny, they don’t get caught that easily on the telly.” They also said that they wanted to see what it was like to kill someone in real life. This occurred not far away and not very long ago. It happened on 17 September, close to home, in Europe.
There is no question of simplifying matters or engaging in generalisations, even if we do have a limited time for speaking in the European Parliament, but there are a great many examples. It may be remembered that, a few years ago, Oliver Stone’s film, ‘Natural Born Killers’, generated the same controversy by giving rise to copycat crimes by youngsters in the United States and France. So when I hear some people stating in debates in committee that there is nothing to prove that television violence in all its forms may have a harmful influence upon children, I am, to put it mildly, surprised.
We are often alarmed at the television programmes our children watch. The on-screen violence of all kinds to which children are subjected, whether it be on television or through the computer, has short-, medium- and long-term consequences. The purpose of this report is to help us, as parents and grandparents, to protect minors and to provide us with a tool enabling us to make better, informed choices for our children. Just how is that an attack on the principle of subsidiarity? The audiovisual media continue to be the exclusive domain of the Member States. At no point does the report suggest potential harmonisation. At the very most, the talk is of tentative convergence. With regard to the protection of minors in the media context, the definition of common criteria is therefore, of necessity, minimal, given the cultural, moral and social variations in our Member States. Establishing minimum criteria is the very least the European Union can do for its children.
I would also support the rapporteur when she explains the need to make sure that all families are guaranteed the right to an affordable filtering system. That being said, these devices must not, and cannot, exonerate broadcasters and educators from fulfilling their responsibilities. Children will very quickly learn to manipulate these filtering systems better than ourselves. Legislators – and I have almost finished speaking now – cannot regulate everything, but they must occasionally remind everyone what their rights and duties are. I believe that that is what we are doing today."@en1
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