Brussels, 21/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is concerned about net neutrality. In an open letter signed by a broad coalition of internet companies, published on Tuesday 20 January, the EBU urges ministers with responsibility for telecoms to support strong and clear net neutrality rules in the connected continent package that has been proposed by the European Commission and on which the Council of Ministers still has to reach agreement. The coalition fears that the proposal may open the door to discrimination between internet users in terms of content, services, applications and the devices used, and is therefore calling for strong non-discrimination clauses which would not infringe internet service providers' ability to offer customers “specialised services”. The Latvian Presidency hopes the member states will agree a common position at the next working meeting of telecoms ministers on 12 June.
With reference to the draft report presented on 20 January by MEP Julia Reda (Greens/EFA, Germany) on copyright reform, the EBU regrets that it misses a number of potential solutions which would facilitate the availability of legal offers of online content. The EBU argues that the opportunity must not be missed to propose technologically neutral measures which can effectively remove restrictions on the circulation of online media content. The report, which will be put to the vote in the Parliament's legal affairs committee on 16 April, proposes changes that will benefit users. “We have to establish a common copyright system which protects fundamental rights and facilitates the availability of innovative online services across the whole of the EU”, said Reda (our translation). (IL)