Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-01-12-Speech-1-154"
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"en.20090112.16.1-154"2
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"Madam President, as has already been mentioned, my colleague Ms Kroes had a small accident so that is why she cannot be with us.
On 4 November 2008 the Commission published, for consultation until 15 January, a draft new broadcast communication. We are serious about the process of wide consultation. Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education has scheduled a hearing for 5 March and, as has already been mentioned, the PPE-DE Group already held such a hearing on Thursday, last week, in the presence of the Director-General for Competition, Philip Lowe.
This dialogue between the Commission and Parliament is important. We stand ready to listen and to reply to your questions. We also know that Parliament agreed in September 2008 that state aid to public broadcasters should be delivered so that they fulfil their function in a dynamic environment, avoiding the use of public funding for reasons of political or economic expediency. This concurs with our views; both public and private broadcasting are important. The dual system of broadcasting is an answer to Europe’s media landscape which must be safeguarded on all platforms.
The draft broadcasting communication therefore seeks to consolidate the Commission’s state aid case practised since their existing 2001 communication. The draft ensures that our rules reflect the rapidly changing new media environment. The objective of modernising the communication is to increase transparency and legal certainty. The draft communication clarifies that public broadcasters shall provide audiovisual services on all media platforms while leaving private operators sufficient incentives to stay in the market. This is ensured by the so-called Amsterdam test, which balances the value and the negative effects of publicly financed media services at the national level.
Why do we have these tests? Because having these tests at the national level helps to avoid Commission intervention. The Commission increasingly receives complaints about borderline cases where a public media activity may have no clear value for citizens but where the market impact appears considerable. The Commission, however, feels that repeated interventions in this sector would not be in the spirit of subsidiarity. This is why we want Member Sates to share the Commission’s responsibility for controlling the market impact of state finance media services.
The Amsterdam test will ensure that new media services of public broadcasters satisfy the social, democratic and cultural needs of viewers and listeners while limiting the collateral damage for state aid for private operators to a minimum. We cannot agree that the Amsterdam test would involve an unjustifiable administrative burden. Of course, any test involves work but the minimum effort we require is reasonable and necessary. Firstly, the test is only foreseen for important and truly new services; and here our draft leaves a large margin of appreciation to Member States. Each Member State can decide when a new audiovisual service actually merits being tested. Secondly, the draft exempts pilot projects from the test. Public broadcasters can therefore continue experimenting with new media without any preliminary tests. Thirdly, the draft leaves Member States full freedom to choose their adequate procedures and institutions which apply the test. It is finally worth mentioning that smaller Member States, such as Belgium and Ireland, already implement such tests. The solutions found in these countries are proportionate to the resources available. As the test is quite broad there is also no possibility of infringing on editorial freedom. The test merely requires that a public media service satisfies the social, democratic and cultural needs of society and that its impact on the market is commensurate. To safeguard editorial independence we also open the possibility in the draft that, under certain conditions, the test is done by a public broadcaster itself.
In summary, I would say the Amsterdam test should be seen as an opportunity rather than as a threat. It will help to maintain media pluralism in the new media environment by safeguarding fairness and certainty for both commercial media, including online newspapers and our excellent public media."@en1
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