News

Responding to the Communication from the European Commission on state aid in public service broadcasting of November 2008, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the European region of UNI-MEI Global Union (EURO-MEI) have issue a joint position yesterday.



The two organisations expressed their support for the common position of member states and underlined that the current framework proved to work well. In fact the Commission has carried out over twenty staid aid cases launched by complaints of commercial competitors since the adoption of the last update of state aid rules in 2001 (the so-called broadcasting communication).



Whereas the Commission and commercial operators favour a extensive revision of the broadcasting communication because they identify a need to adapt the text of 2001 to technological, legal and market developments, member states, the EBU and as well as the EFJ and EURO-MEI are of the opinion that only minor changes are necessary because the existing framework has been proved to be a solid and flexible framework capable of encompassing the dynamics of the audiovisual sector. In their position pare the unions stress that the Commission is proposing measures - such as pre-determining the choice of procedure for entrustment), which go simply beyond its competences and do not respect the principle of subsidiarity and the Amsterdam Protocol on Public Service Broadcasting.



The EFJ and EURO-MEI also underline that some of the new controlling measures proposed would put disproportional burdens in particular on smaller public service broadcasters. Other measures like proposed ex-ante assessments bear the risk to stifle innovation and threaten the editorial independence of the public service broadcasters.



for more information contact



marc.gruber@ifj.org or johannes.stduinger@uniglobalunion.org



Download the joint position here: