Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-06-Speech-2-329"
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Mr President, Parliament has made a number of proposals that I support unreservedly, because we share the same aim: to protect our children.
I agree with Parliament with regard to hotlines and filtering. I would add that I have promised and acted to ensure that part of our research budget is invested in improving filters, because, quite frankly, what we have at the moment is not great. In that vein, Mrs De Sarnez, Amendment 33 on hotlines and filters is one of the amendments that the Commission accepts. We will support it in our policies.
On the other hand, we have some problems with Amendments 3 and 5, particularly because they refer to the Constitutional Treaty, which, unfortunately, we do not have. We cannot make commitments based on a text that we may wish for with all our might, but that is not yet available to us.
With regard to Amendment 13, you will be aware that the Commission has proposed dates for the transition from analogue to digital, but this aspect has no place in the recommendation as such. In addition, the dates are some way off, as the transition is scheduled for 2010 and the analogue switch-off for 2012. I do not want to get involved in fortune telling.
As regards Amendment 27, which aims to reduce food advertising specifically targeted at children, although I agree with the principle, it comes under the subsidiarity principle and I must say that self-regulation of the industry is working quite well at the moment. What is needed, from the point of view of Parliament, from the point of view of the Commission and from the point of view of the Member States, is to apply pressure for this self-regulation to be truly effective in all aspects.
With regard to Amendment 28, we think that it does not add anything and that it risks causing confusion because there is industry and there is industry, so why not all industries? With regard to Amendment 29, you should be aware that, in the assessment systems, local, regional and national cultural differences also come into play. These cultural differences, for which, as you know, I have fought continually, do not suit me in this particular instance, but they do exist and they must be taken into account. As for Amendment 32, concerning discrimination created by false and stereotyped images, we must, as some of you have already said, strike a balance between the protection of children and freedom of expression. On the subject of Amendment 34, we think that the original proposal will be more effective.
With regard to Amendments 23, 37 and 38 on the right of reply, which was the subject of almost all of your speeches, I have got the message. I know how close this right of reply is to your hearts. However, moving from indicative guidelines to minimum principles, covering all audiovisual and online information services, replacing ‘assertion of facts’ with ‘inaccurate facts’: all of this raises some major legal problems. I am therefore inclined to listen to the Commission’s legal service, which has warned me of the possibility that these concepts could be falsely interpreted. That is why I prefer to err more on the side of legal certainty. In relation to Amendment 39, too, I prefer the basis of the Commission’s text.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that we agree on 95% of the elements presented and we agree 100% on the values that we share and that will be the values of our society in the future, based on respect and on the way in which we protect the young people of today. That is what is essential here. The fact that we are implementing the best methods for achieving these results seems to me to be an element of that
that the Commissioners, and also the MEPs, know so well because they are in contact with the national and regional officials who will have to put into practice a large proportion of what we have decided today. Therefore, yes to the values and yes to almost all of the Commission’s proposals. Thank you to the rapporteurs and thank you for your very committed speeches this evening, which I welcome on behalf of our European society.
God knows that new technologies, in enabling us to communicate freely on a global scale, present us, educators and politicians, with greater difficulties than was the case with the technologies and media we are used to. When something negative is published in the written press, it is possible to prevent it being republished. When a negative programme is broadcast on television, we can stop it. In contrast, on the worldwide web of the Internet, these options are limited. We must be aware that, with the growth of these new media, we have entered a technological reality that presents us with far greater regulation difficulties than for traditional media. That being the case, we have a responsibility as politicians, but also as parents, because I think that most of us here are parents too: what can we do to protect our children in the face of technological realities that can no longer be controlled as they could in the past?
I would like to assure the honourable Members that, faced with this problem, we have not remained inactive. We have been working for a number of years with the Safer Internet programme, and we have observed that hotlines, for example, work extremely well. We have been able to see the results of these hotlines, where they relate to law enforcement bodies. I will just mention the INHOPE network, which has really made it possible to move things on. Indeed, you must not think that the Internet is completely unregulated. The Internet is regulated in a different way. In the past, for the traditional media, regulation came from outside. For the Internet, it comes from the inside, from the users themselves. It is Internet users that, using our hotlines, using our portals, bring our attention to the existence of negative content. Most of our information on this subject therefore comes from teachers, from parents, from ordinary Internet users and that is one of the new assets for our politicians: we have communities of Internet users who operate by trying to control negative content. As legislators, we therefore have to think differently and make these communities more aware of their responsibilities.
Nevertheless, Mr President, we must not forget the responsibilities of politicians, of the educational sector and, above all, of parents. In this respect, I agree completely with the honourable Members: we must give parents, if they want it, the means to protect their children. Filters are extremely important in this regard, and the Safer Internet programme
provides funds for testing the effectiveness of these filters, because we must accept that they are not all very effective. One of you had a story to tell about this, and I am sure we could all tell more. We therefore really need to put in the investment to increase the effectiveness of filters.
Some Members, and I can well understand this, are wondering why we have not gone for more restrictive legislation, why we prefer ‘light’ to ‘heavy’ legislation. There are a number of answers to that. First of all, the recommendation of 1998 is still valid. Today, we are discussing an addition, an improvement, further action to what has already been decided. Secondly, we must not forget that this is very much a matter for subsidiarity. Thus, according to the ‘Television Without Frontiers’ Directive, the definition of harmful content and the actions to be taken in response to it come under national authority. This is already a partial response to another question that was asked: why do we not confine ourselves to revising the ‘Television Without Frontiers’ Directive in the future? Well, it is precisely because, in transforming the ‘Television Without Frontiers’ Directive into an ‘Audiovisual Content Without Frontiers’ directive, we would not include all media. It is extremely important, in the field concerning us, for all media to be involved, in other words not just audiovisual media and the Internet, but also the written press.
Another issue that was brought up is the right of reply. In relation to this right, our Member States – because this subject, too, comes under the subsidiarity principle – have had good experiences with coregulation. I consequently believe that we should continue to use coregulation.
That said, Mr President, I must stress that the main aim of all the actions that will be taken thanks to Safer Internet, thanks to ‘Television Without Frontiers’ which will become ‘Audiovisual Content Without Frontiers’, thanks to all the regulations, both light and not so light, that we are going to apply, is and remains the protection of our young people. I would therefore like to say to the honourable Members today that I was very pleased to hear from all sides that, in addition to paedophilia, which is a crime, in addition to pornography, which is still banned in our various countries, by various cultural methods, it is also, and above all, violence that causes a problem.
In the five years that I have now been responsible for media matters, I have said this time and again: it is not only pornography, but also violence that is very damaging to our children. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for recognising this fact and for helping to go down this route, because, at present, violence is not recognised in national or international legislation as being as damaging as pornography. We have therefore taken a huge step forward in this regard.
However, I think, Mr President, that what Parliament really wants to hear is what the Commission intends to do with Parliament’s amendments on which various speakers have commented this evening. There is a whole series of amendments that the Commission will accept as such or with only minor alterations. It is late, so I will not go over all of them. I wanted to start on a positive note: the Commission accepts almost all the amendments, albeit with a few alterations to which we can return later."@en1
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