Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-27-Speech-3-244"
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"en.19991027.10.3-244"2
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"Mr President, I would start by saying that in a letter of 6 July 1999 the Council consulted Parliament pursuant to Article 157, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning Community participation in the European Audiovisual Observatory. At the sitting of 23 July, the President of Parliament proposed that the Committee, chaired by myself, should examine the subject, and in its meeting of 27 July, the Committee on Culture and Youth appointed me rapporteur. During the meetings of 22 September and 11 and 12 October, the Committee considered the proposal and the draft report, which it adopted unanimously.
The European Audiovisual Observatory, Mr President, is a very important public service body, which aims to gather and disseminate information on the audiovisual industry: cinema, television, video etc. It was set up under the aegis of Audiovisual Eureka in October 1989 and operates within the framework of a partial agreement which was obtained in the Council of Europe. As a whole, its members include at least 34 European States and the Commission of the European Union. With regard to its network of partners, correspondents and various organisms, its mission cannot be confused – this is an important and fundamental fact, which the Committee discussed at length – with Eurostat’s mission and its tasks in this sector. They are two different things. While the Community body aims for a harmonised, systematic collection of general statistics from various States, with the public and administrations as its main clients, who therefore provide it with work, the observatory has more specific and focused objectives, according to the market and the statistical requirements of firms and professionals. Moreover, its sphere of competence is broader: it extends into the legal sector, to specialist information, and its mandate, which covers the 34 States – and I stress this once again – is broader than that of Eurostat. The two institutions must not be too far opposed, or rather, they must not and cannot be opposed as they are in regular contact, have also established their
and have come to an agreement on the way their activities are to be carried out. On the other hand, the Court of Justice’s ruling of 12 May 1998 concerning the legal bases called for a better defined framework with respect to the past because of the previous confusion.
The new line concerns the preparatory measures of the audiovisual sector. It does not refer to former Article 130(3) regarding industrial development and the decisions on the basis of which a Eureka programme was founded for the audiovisual sector. A category seeking to create an infrastructure of statistical information has been envisaged. This should allow payment of the Community’s contribution to the budget of the European Observatory of Strasbourg for 1999, that is for the current year. The delay has certainly hindered and is still hindering the functioning of the institution. And I think – and moreover, this is the opinion of the entire Committee – that its functioning is important and fundamental for the European Commission and for the 34 Member States which are members and which continue to be active members in the observatory. On the other hand, I believe we will have the chance to cooperate on these issues with the excellent Commissioner, Mrs Reding, and I take this opportunity to greet her and thank her for her willingness on the matter.
Mr President, having the honour to chair the Committee on Culture, naturally I also represent its position. As I said at the beginning, the final vote was unanimous and of the three amendments, two were adopted unanimously and one was adopted by a majority. On a personal note, however, I would like to say that I did not agree with the third amendment, in the sense that the decision we are about to adopt and that the Commission has already brought forward should have expired in the original text on the last day of the last month of the fifth year, while the Commission has shortened the time period to three years. I repeat that, personally, I have some doubts because I think that we are making a distinction between Eurostat and the observatory which will maybe not lead to cooperation, although that has been decided on recently. On the other hand, the justified concern which was worrying Mr Perry – he is a signatory of the amendment – that over the next few years Parliament would have to control the expenditure and budget of the observatory, will still be valid when we change the five year period, that is when we give the observatory the chance to plan the valuable functions that it has in a broader and more organised way."@en1
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