Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-14-Speech-1-087"
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"en.20051114.14.1-087"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you will allow me, in the short time that is available to me, to draw your attention to two aspects of this digital switchover, starting with the open standards, to which, obviously, Mrs Barsi-Pataky has already made reference. I would remind the Commissioner that the Commission itself decided, in March, that the national governments should foot the bill for pilot projects, for example, but also for the purchase of set-top boxes for individual consumers. I wonder if you should not make this more specific in the sense that you need to indicate that such financial support, or subsidy, is only possible for set-top boxes with a so-called open standard, mainly to avoid two things.
The object should be to avoid putting consumers to great expense twice and also to avoid one or other industrial partner deliberately engineering bottlenecks, because if one thing is clear, Commissioner, it is that this new way of watching television digitally will push up the cost for the consumer. That is why it is crucial that we agree on a basic package of channels that are accessible to everyone both now and in future. I take it that you share our view that providers must, in future, be required to offer their customers the basic channels of the national stations. What is known as must-carry should not get in the way of the digital switchover; on the contrary, it is, in our eyes, a guarantee for maximum distribution.
Secondly, with regard to pluralism and diversity, there is, as you referred to a moment ago, the risk that the switchover to digital technology will result in the new markets being controlled by dominant players. That is why, in the draft resolution adopted by the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, we explicitly ask you to ensure that the new digital market will not fall within the exclusive control of one or other multinational. The text reads as follows: ‘the majority, or an appropriate part, of the new broadcasting possibilities and broadcasters should not come under the exclusive control or decisive influence of multinational media undertakings’. This should become one of the Commission’s priorities in this whole process of change.
There is no need for me to make the link to the directive on television without frontiers, as we will be discussing this either by the end of this year or the beginning of next. In that area too, it is important to ensure that the national markets do not get into the hands of one dominant player to a disproportionate, and therefore unhealthy, degree. In that debate, Commissioner Špidla, the Commission must side with the consumer. I truly hope that you will not resort to the argument of subsidiarity all too easily in order to avoid your responsibility, because that argument is, to my mind, a totally inappropriate one to use."@en1
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