Freedom of press ‘under attack’ in Vitorino blueprint

Date: 01/02/01

By Peter Chapman

Publishing firms say proposed EU rules for settling cross-border legal disputes will strangle freedom of expression and unfairly expose the press to lawsuits in courts across the Union.

Justice chief Antonio Vitorino's plan, currently being circulated to other European Commission departments, would empower judges to apply the laws of the victim's' country whenever there is confusion over how to rule in court cases.

Industry groups say the new rules would leave newspapers, magazines and web sites too vulnerable to defamation suits across member states. Advertising and marketing companies are also preparing to fight the Commissioner over his blueprint, claiming it could wipe out cross-border business campaigns.

Angela Mills, director of the European Publishers Council, says the Vitorino plan would strike fear into the hearts of publishing companies across the Union. "This would have a chilling effect on freedom of expression," she said, adding that the draft rules, if adopted, would encourage malicious claims.

Mills says the proposals - dubbed 'Rome II' because they would add to an existing law governing cross-border contract disputes - would force those publications targeted at a specific market such as France to comply with defamation laws in every other member state. Those laws tend to vary significantly from one country to the next.

"It is alright for someone to sue a company in his own courts. But the laws must be those of the country where the company is based. People must look at an English newspaper and see that it is quintessentially English in content, language and law," said Mills.

For its opening salvo, the industry is firing off an angry letter to Vitorino and seeking an ally in Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein.

Advertising and marketing firms are alarmed over suggestions in the Vitorino paper that they could be sued over breaches of foreign rules covering 'unfair competition' - even if they meet the legal obligations in the country where they are based. These include Germany's notorious rules banning such marketing practices as two-for-the-price-of-one offers.

Daniel Krebber, spokesman for the World Federation of Advertisers, says this approach would make companies think twice before launching cross-border advertising campaigns. He argues it would also strike a fatal blow to a recently adopted directive on e-commerce, allowing firms operating on the web to offer their services anywhere in the Union provided they meet national rules in the country where they are based.

"Everyone could sue advertisers," said Krebber. "The single market for commercial communications would be that in name only."

Publishing firms say proposed EU rules for settling cross-border disputes will strangle freedom of expression and unfairly expose the press to lawsuits in courts across the Union.