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Following the first consultation at the end of 2008 the Commission had issued a second draft of the revised Broadcasting Communication of 2001, which lays down state aid rules in public service broadcasting. The Commission launched a second round of consultation in April. IFJ and UNI MEI joined forces again and adopted a joint position on 8 May. Whereas both organisations welcome important improvements, in particular with respect to editorial independence, they remain opposed to the Commission’s proposal to require all public broadcasters in every Member States to carry out ex-ante impact assessments for every significant new service to be launched. In their joint position paper IFJ and UNI MEI underline that “the business of broadcasting is about experimenting and developing, and public broadcasters should be allowed to freely do so”, an ex-ante impact assessment would certainly kill creativity and limit the possibility of public broadcasters to experiment with new services. Also, media unions fear that an ex-ante evaluation for new media service would open up possibilities to interfere with the editorial independence of public service broadcasters.

The Commission is now reviewing the comments before amending the Broadcasting Communication. It doesn’t need to consult Parliament and Council and it is expected that the new rules will be adopted before the summer break.

Download the position paper under "related files" at the top.