Brussels, 01/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission wrote to eight member states (Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxemburg) on Thursday 1st September seeking information about their implementation of the Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive. It has asked the member states to reply within 10 weeks. The fact-finding letters are part of the Commission's efforts to ensure that the national media laws of all member states correctly implement all aspects of the AVMS rules. The issues raised vary from one member state to the other. The requests for information do not imply that the directive has been incorrectly implemented by the member states concerned but simply that, at this stage, the Commission has some outstanding questions concerning their implementation of the directive.
The Commission sent a first round of letters to 16 member states (Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Slovakia and the United Kingdom) in March 2011. Slovenia has not yet notified the Commission of any measures to incorporate the AVMS Directive into its national law and Poland has only partially notified some measures. Infringement procedures have been instigated against these two member states. The Commission is still analysing the measures notified by Portugal.
Requests for clarification by the Commission relate to a range of issues: - the country of origin principle and jurisdiction issues concerning audiovisual services; - audiovisual commercial communications (including product placement and sponsorship television advertising and teleshopping); - basic obligations under the directive (such as identification requirements, rules on incitement to hatred, on accessibility, balanced coverage obligations, registration of on-demand services); - the protection of minors; - promoting European works; - events of major importance to be broadcast on free to air television and short news extracts; - cooperation between regulators.
The AVMS Directive (2010/13/EU) ensures a single market and legal certainty for Europe's TV and audiovisual industry by creating a level playing field for both broadcast and on-demand audiovisual media services across frontiers. (O.L./transl.rt)