Brussels, 11/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - Experts participating at an international conference on the European audiovisual market in Riga on 9-10 March emphasised that revising the Audiovisual Media Services Directive was imperative.
Representatives from the member states shared their experiences with regard to implementation of the current directive and highlighted what shortcomings needed to be tackled. They said it was necessary to improve media education, ensure more protection for children in the context of information access, enhance the role of the regulators in charge of supervising media content and implementation of the principle of the country of origin. Speaking on behalf of the European Commission, Lorena Boix, from DG CONNECT, highlighted the need to share best practices in the transposition of the AMS directive with the Commission, so that the latter would be able to improve the revision of the directive. In his capacity as Commissioner for the Digital Economy, Günther Oettinger, said that he wanted to make revision of the AMS directive a priority so that the text could be adapted to the new digital platforms. At the end of January, he informed the European Parliament that he intended to conclude this operation by the end of 2015, so that the debate would continue with the stakeholders involved until the middle of 2016 (see EUROPE 11241). (Isabelle Lamberty)