Italian stations ‘not breaking’ state aid rules

Date:18/09/03

MARIO Monti, the competition commissioner, is set to rule that public service TV channels in his native Italy are not breaking the EU's tough state aid rules, in the first of a series of rulings that will lift regulatory doubts over the way public TV is funded in the Union.

The decisions will end a long-running saga in Monti's department, once inundated with complaints against state-run channels from private competitors, who complained their rivals were being given an unfair helping hand.

Monti will give Italian authorities the all-clear for the collection of "ad-hoc" aid measures paid to Italian state-run broadcaster RAI during the 1980s and 1990s.

The decision will be conditional upon the Italians promising that the licence fee system is in line with the net additional cost, after advertising and commercial revenues, of offering public service programmes.

Elsewhere, Monti is also set to declare that broadcasters in France, Portugal and Spain are not running roughshod over the state aid rulebook.

But he is likely to call for them to tighten up the separation of accounts between public service parts of their operations and purely commercial operations.

This would bring them into line with an EU directive on transparency.

The Competition Commissioner, Mario Monti, is set to rule that Italian public service TV channels are not breaking state aid regulations.