Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-18-Speech-1-058"
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"en.20021118.4.1-058"2
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"Mr President, these debates on the hot topic of media policy have been going on since 1992, and Parliament had always taken a democratic approach to the issue. Since 1997, though, silence has reigned, but now it seems that I can congratulate Parliament on having, like Sleeping Beauty, woken up.
I would like now to speak on behalf of my group. I cannot but underline the arguments of those who have spoken before me, and I would like to pick up two of the significant points they made. Entrepreneurship, on the one hand, has become out of balance with journalistic activity on the other, as it now is also with those who produce creative material. It is for us to restore this balance. The EU, which announced the creation of the internal market as one of its priorities, must assume its political responsibility in this process involving consolidation and concentration. We did not liberalise a few years ago by breaking up media monopolies simply in order to create new media monopolies. Both economic diversity and pluralism in the media are equally under threat. The wide-ranging nature of concentrations merits particular attention.
My second point is that one of the pillars of democracy is the separation of powers, something that is of especial concern to my group. Having successfully accomplished the separation of church and state, I believe we ought now to devote our energies to separating political power and the media. I am speaking here of a European official culture, especially on the eve of enlargement.
One more practical question for the Commission: in 1997, the directive on media ownership disappeared back into a drawer, quite possibly as a result of political pressure, although we cannot be certain of that. We need a better legal basis at European level, but then we know that; it is a statement we heard all of five years ago, and we do not need to have it repeated. Why, then, has the Commission only now started to do something about it? We are all aware of these problems; they are not new, and we do not need to reinvent the wheel. Action is needed, O esteemed Commission! I repeat that I support the arguments of those who have preceded me on the floor, and, as Mr Barón Crespo said, media policy is not a party issue. We must not let it become one."@en1
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