Viviane Reding
Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media
“The Innovative Power of Magazine Publishing”
Gala dinner of the European Federation of Magazine Publishers Brussels, 15 June 2005
Dear President Leimio, Dear Joao Palmeiro, Dear members of the European Federation of magazine publishers, ladies and gentlemen, It is a great pleasure to be with you tonight, the day before the European Council meets in Brussels and at a crucial time for the European Union. Publishers, who are part of an economic sector, the content business, that is experiencing huge changes as a consequence of the so called convergence, are key players to make the Lisbon agenda a success. You are in a business where Europe must become stronger and, with your 50.000 titles, you have a crucial role in spreading knowledge. President Barroso has entrusted me with the special responsibility of being your “correspondent” in the Commission, your first contact. This is actually fully consistent with the new “convergence” portfolio that has been created. Publishers are part of this portfolio, whereas their “correspondent” in the Commission used to be the officials dealing with the paper industry. In my view, the current situation is a huge improvement: Indeed, a newspaper, a magazine, is not a tree! Ladies and gentlemen, I know that you expect a lot from me as your “correspondent”. Let me therefore say a few words on the instruments I have put in place in order to facilitate our cooperation. First of all: the new Task Force, whose officials are with us tonight. I know that you are regularly in contact with this Task Force as well as with my cabinet. • My overall responsibility for co-ordinating media policy needed a co-ordination instrument. The Task Force has three functions (1) effective policy coordination to ensure that media maximise their contribution to Lisbon; this means minimising threats to the economic viability and editorial freedom (2) contribution to the development of an integrated media policy (3) contact point for new players, and notably for players from new Member States. Improved co-ordination for initiatives having a link with media policy within the Commission is an important challenge. Challenge number 1 of the Task Force is therefore the scope of its activity. The first draft of the inventory of policy initiatives lists nearly 100 issues across 14 Directorates-general. Thank you for your inputs to that list. The Task Force and my cabinet have set up a network of media policy correspondents across cabinets and services. This will have a first meeting before the summer holidays. In the coming weeks, my services will publish a document on “Strengthening the competitiveness of the EU Publishing Industry: the role of media policy.” This paper will survey the competitiveness of the EU publishing sector, describe the various sub-sectors that make up EU publishing and elaborate some criteria for assessing its competitiveness. For the second part of the year, one of the highlights of the Task Force’s work programme will be the Publishers’ Summit, due to take place on 6 December. This is the conference that FAEP and other publishing
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associations will co-sponsor with the Commission. You have invested considerable thought in remodelling this event so that it can contribute more directly to policy debate. • The other important item on the agenda for the second half of the year is the preparation of a paper on media pluralism. This document is intended for the Group of Commissioners on fundamental rights. This group has a mission to take stock of how all policies affect fundamental rights. Its work is linked to the objective that the European Union should sign the European Convention on Human Rights. My position on media pluralism remains unchanged: given the mainly national scope of media, ownership rules should be applied at national level, not through a Directive. When considering pluralism at EU level, regulatory forbearance is an important principle. It requires public authorities to investigate issues thoroughly and to consider available remedies. Remedies must be necessary and proportionate. One needs to reflect on the perverse effects that the remedies themselves may have. A classic example of regulatory forbearance is nascent markets, where regulators do not intervene because the remedies may be disproportionate to the scale of the problem and hamper the development of the market. By analogy, a few cross-border media deals should not trigger an over-arching response from the EU, seeking to impose a harmonised template for ownership rules across all 25 Member States and all media. This is particularly true for magazine publishing, which still has a very national focus, whereas the online market is just emerging and lacks a sustainable business model. Legal and political experience supports this position. The consultation on the White Paper on Services of General Interest advised against a directive on ownership and pluralism. Article 21.4 of the EU Merger Regulation specifically permits Member States to take into account the impact of media concentration on pluralism at national level. The Commission’s own experiences trying to develop a media pluralism directive in the 1990s revealed the underlying political difficulties – and a clear preference for leaving this issue to Member States. As well as ownership rules, Member States must ensure that public service broadcasters have a well-defined mission, editorial independence and suitable governance. Public service broadcasting can indeed make a significant contribution to pluralism. In order to fulfil that role, governance of the public service broadcasters must be of high quality. Regulatory forbearance is not a passive or easy option for us. You are all aware of the strong concerns expressed in the European Parliament, notably in the Boogerd-Quaak Resolution, and the pressure to regulate. The Commission is active and vigilant. The scope of the Parliament’s resolution is much wider than ownership rules, as it covers issues as diverse as digital gateways, interoperability, competition and conflict of interest rules for politicians’ business interests. Community legal frameworks cover some of these areas. Their objectives may not include pluralism, but they offer powerful indirect support. Competition law
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promotes multiple players and prevents abuse of dominant position. The Commission also promotes freedom of expression and pluralism on the international scene, for instance at the World Summit on the Information Society, in enlargement negotiations and in our agreements with third countries. Ladies and gentlemen, Let me now give you some input on the modernisation and simplification of the 1989 “Television Without Frontiers” (TWF) Directive. • Hardly any piece of legislation has been subject to a review and consultation process as thorough as the TWF Directive: after the public consultation in 2003, so called focus groups meetings were held in 2004 and 2005, with the participation of all the content and infrastructure industries. Issue papers will be published on our website at the beginning of July. They will summarize the main options for the future legislative framework for audiovisual content services and will be subject to public consultation during summer in preparation of a major audiovisual conference co-organised with the UK Presidency in September 2005 in Liverpool. I will then propose to the Commission to adopt a proposal for a new Directive at the end of 2005. Concerning advertising, Focus Group 2 meetings have confirmed that the construction reflected in the current “Television without Frontiers” Directive is very complicated and hence not easy to implement. In respect of traditional “linear” services, a large majority of stakeholders consider that giving broadcasters more flexibility - in order to be able to finance their activities and in order to be able to cope with future challenges related to new technologies as well as with the diversification of services and channels – is needed. I do not believe that this would mean less revenue for publishers: On the one hand, many publishers are part of multimedia groups. On the other hand, the choice of the industry to spend money for advertising depends on many factors, and I am convinced that the traditional form of advertising on big free to air broadcasters will become less and less interesting for companies. In my view, the qualitative rules applying to linear television concerning advertising for alcohol, medications, or products and services directed at minors are essential and should not be modified. On the other hand, we should simplify and modernise the quantitative restrictions. We should, for example, abolish the daily limits for advertising while maintaining the hourly limit of 12 minutes per hour, as I want to keep the quality of the European audiovisual landscape.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I know that you have been very busy in the last few years and months with the Rome II Convention and its possible negative effects on your business. • Publishers and broadcasters are concerned that the draft regulation will facilitate “forum shopping” by defamation litigants. International private law favours the jurisdiction of the complainant’s country of residence. This had
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been universally accepted by all 15 Member States, at the time when the draft regulation appeared. • Until recently, it seemed that there was only a hard choice between either country of origin or country of destination. It is now apparent that a compromise somewhere between the two may be possible. I have noticed the interesting ways forward contained in the Wallis report. The Parliament’s committee is going to vote next week. I am confident that a suitable solution will be found and both the Task Force and my cabinet follow this issue closely.
Thank you for your attention.
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