Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-18-Speech-1-065"
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"en.20021118.4.1-065"2
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"Mr President, as has been stated repeatedly in this debate, there is undoubtedly a link between freedom of information and democracy, and I feel that this debate must serve, not least, to make Parliament and the European institutions more aware than they have been hitherto of the link between democracy and suppressed freedom of information, of the way the media is used to suppress democracy. This is the case in many countries with which we have economic or commercial relations and countries such as Iraq, China, Cuba, Vietnam and so forth. Certainly, safeguarding freedom of information as a guarantee of genuine democracy is a problem for Europe too.
There are two or three points I would like to make in this regard. Firstly, in my opinion, we need to be very sparing in our calls for European legislation, in our calls for the Commission to impose some sort of constraints on a market – the merging telecommunications and media markets – which, we must not forget, has to be able to withstand the challenges of the international markets inasmuch as European undertakings have to be able to withstand the challenges of the international markets. Now then, overloading a market which is already struggling – there are linguistic and cultural barriers, for example, which make it difficult for companies to grow – with the additional burdens of constraints and restrictions could be dangerous.
There is, however, a paradox which I would like to point out in this debate. It is absurd that we who, although not members of national parliaments, are representatives of the European institutions, focus a great deal on market dynamics and concentrations but fail to even mention the powerful force of state media companies in Europe.
Take Italy, for example. It is right to put the spotlight on the situation and it is right to be concerned, as it is always right to be concerned about the relationship between the media and democracy, but what is not being said is that half the information sector is in the hands of the state, in other words in the hands of the parties. This is the case almost throughout Europe. Do we really think that the parties are using their television networks with due respect for the pluralism of information and due respect for the citizens’ right to be informed, or are they serving their own interests and putting across specific information?
There is another dimension to this, and here I pay tribute to the work of Commissioner Van Miert in the previous Commission. The existence of state television networks is detrimental to the media and information market. State television networks take up space which could be used for the creation of competing firms, possibly even European firms, and the charges, licence fees and funding associated with them siphon off resources which could be redistributed in the market and used to create a plurality of competing companies.
We must reflect on all this. I feel that a comment from the Commission on these matters – state aid, competition, the abuse of dominant positions and so forth in the internal markets – would be appropriate too."@en1
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