Brussels, 16/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - European Parliament (EP) President Jerzy Buzek, and Commissioners Neelie Kroes and Stefan Füle, responsible for Digital Strategy and Enlargement respectively, met in Strasbourg on Tuesday 15 November to discuss “how best to foster freedom of expression in the existing legal framework” in the enlargement countries.
“There is no democracy without free press. Freedom of expression and media pluralism are at the heart of EU values: the same must be true for candidate and potential candidate countries”, stated Buzek, highlighting the EP's desire to “raise standards and awareness” on this issue. The commissioners also stressed the importance of media freedom and pluralism. “We support (media freedom) in law, through debate and through research. We support it online and offline and we will not waver in that support”, said Kroes. Füle noted that freedom of expression is one of the stages in the new approach to accession negotiations, with the opening of Chapter 23 on fundamental EU values in justice, freedom and security, at the start of talks. “Issues of media freedom are also listed among the 5 key challenges in the Annual Strategy document on enlargement and the situation in the individual countries receives profound coverage in the progress reports”, the Commission points out.
This year, the European Commission has set up a high-level committee, chaired by the former president of Latvia, Prof. Dr. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, and an academic centre based in Florence, to “reflect on how best to continue promoting media freedoms and pluralism”. (CG/transl.rt)