Bolkestein spurns demands for media ownership law

Date:24/07/03

By Peter Chapman

FRITS Bolkestein, commissioner for the internal market, has spurned calls from leading MEPs for pan-EU rules to stop European media falling into the hands of moguls such as Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi and Australian-born Rupert Murdoch.

Bolkestein claims the European Commission is powerless to act.

A coalition of 38 MEPs including group leaders Graham Watson (Liberal) Enrique Barón Crespo (Socialists) and the Greens' Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Monica Frassoni, chided the Commission for failing to heed a 2002 Parliamentary resolution demanding a directive to safeguard media pluralism in the soon-to-be 25 member state EU.

They cited Italy - where Berlusconi controls the government as well as much of the print and audiovisual media - as a glaring example of what can happen unless clear safeguards are in place.

Without clear rules, the MEPs warned, the EU is setting a poor example for young democracies.

Moreover, they added, the specific nature of the information market could also justify the setting up of international rules during the current Doha round of World Trade Organization negotiations.

But Bolkestein, in charge of ensuring the unfettered movement of goods and services in the Union, said such a law is not yet within the gift of the EU's executive.

"The Commission does not intend to take action on the resolution since it deals with pluralism as a democratic and institutional value within each member state, expressing the desire to maintain free and diversified media in all member states," Bolkestein wrote to the MEPs.

"The existing community instruments, which are founded on the legal bases of the Treaty of Rome, are designed to ensure a certain economic balance between economic operators and thus directly affect the media as an economic activity, but not - or very indirectly - as a vehicle for delivering information to citizens.

"The Commission does not therefore have the legal instruments to allow it to take the problems raised into consideration", the Dutchman added.

However, Bolkestein said the Commission had backed the inclusion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the EU's draft constitutional treaty.

The Charter, explained Bolkestein, clearly sets out the principle that the EU should respect freedom and pluralism of the media.

At the same time, he said the question of media ownership was raised in a broader green paper on services of general economic interest, launched earlier this year.

Bolkestein's message on media ownership follows a Commission U-turn on taxation that will also lift a threat to the power of Berlusconi's Mediaset empire.

The internal market chief's department favoured scrapping a loophole that allows Italian and French pay TV channels to charge low rates of value-added tax.

But fellow commissioners vetoed the plan, bowing to heavy industry and government lobbying on the issue.

Frits Bolkestein, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, has said the European Commission is powerless to respond to demands from some MEPs to introduce a Directive safeguarding media pluralism in the EU.