Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-01-12-Speech-1-160"
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"en.20090112.16.1-160"2
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".
Madam President, for 80 years, public broadcasting has had the task of informing the public in the broadest possible sense. This service can survive by public funding that may be collected via a separate radio and television tax and that may be topped up with membership contributions to broadcasting organisations, as has been the case in the Netherlands for a long time.
Alongside this, in recent decades, public broadcasting has been encouraged to earn its own money. This is achieved not only through advertising time but also by making much of the information material collected by the broadcasting house available in the form of audio and video material. It is expected that, as a result, viewers and listeners will feel more closely associated, new target groups will be reached and government costs will be limited. This task, which has grown over the years, poses no problems as long as commercial channels do not feel adversely affected.
From the perspective of commercial channels, the much older public broadcasters may be seen as competitors that are given a serious advantage as they collect funds through taxpayers’ money. The question is now whether the public broadcasters’ right to exist should no longer be derived in the first instance from their usefulness to society as a whole, but from the possible distortion of competition in respect of commercial channels. As public and private interests no longer clash, the European Commission is faced with conflicting demands.
The future of public broadcasters will be in the balance if their room to manoeuvre is limited in favour of commercial companies’ scope for profit. Things will be even worse if this is done without this Parliament’s involvement, with the express objections of 19 of the 27 Member State governments being dismissed.
Over recent years, I have asked the Commission a number of times to abandon this fatal plan. This appears to be the only possible solution to me, given the current widespread concern. Moreover, this is a matter that falls within the competence of the Member States, not that of the European Union. I endorse the questions and position adopted by Mr Visser and the other speakers."@en1
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