Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-12-13-Speech-2-307"
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".
Mr President, first of all, I should like to thank Mrs Hieronymi, not only for the assessment that she achieved in a few minutes here, but also for her monitoring activities during the two-and-a-half year preparation of the new legislation that is now on the table. I would also thank her for the lovely phrase ‘a fitness programme for the audiovisual media’. I think that that will become a popular quotation in the coming months.
Increasing self-regulation is a means of implementing the directive, which itself constitutes a legal framework that the national authorities must transpose into national law. As regards implementation, however, they have the opportunity of either going still further than this framework or – provided there is the necessary acceptance among stakeholders – doing so by means of controlled self-regulation. It is correct that this is the first time that this terminology has appeared in a European legislative text. I believe that placing trust in the experts working in the field is an important step in the right direction.
Mr Sifunakis, the chairman of the Committee on Culture and Education, asked me why he had not been informed until the last minute. Mr Sifunakis, I myself was only told early this afternoon that the Commission had accepted my proposals. Today it has been a matter of informing Parliament, not of debating the issue. I am sure that the debate itself will be very intensive; it will be long, and I imagine it will begin next year in the relevant committees, namely the Committee on Culture and Education and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.
Everything that worked well in the Television Without Frontiers Directive has been reproduced in the new directive. I have not compromised the quotas – quite the contrary. As far as online services are concerned, I have imposed an obligation to promote European works, an instrument that does not exist at the present time. The percentage provided by independent producers remains in place, and consumer protection is reinforced, because we need well-informed consumers who know what awaits them. In short, consumer information and the protection of consumers against abuses are maintained, and not only in the sphere of traditional television, because these principles also apply to the new services.
Mr Herrero wondered whether the pluralism of the media was still guaranteed in a world where changes took place every day. One need only read the newspapers from all parts of Europe for reassurance on that score: new mergers take place, existing groups break up, and new media services are created. Digitisation will generate an explosion of channels available to the public, not to mention the new forms of video on demand. What other inventions are set to appear in the near future? The consumer will be faced with an enormously wide choice, which is a good way to develop pluralism. The more choice available to the consumer, the more pluralism will develop. For this reason, we must do everything we can to foster consumer choice.
Cultural diversity is also a very important aspect of pluralism, and the extension of such diversity to the new services is an important step towards pluralism.
At the beginning of next year, my departments will publish a document on the national rules relating to media concentrations. I had promised you such a document to enable us – the Commission and Parliament – to take a joint look at the direction in which we are heading. It will be on the table at the start of next year. We shall then have the opportunity to debate its content and any action that needs to be taken at European level."@en1
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