A battle is raging at the European Parliament on cross-border access to television and radio transmissions broadcast on the Internet (see EUROPE 11905).
Despite attempts by the rapporteur, Tiemo Wölken (S&D, Germany), it appears that the negotiators from the political groups are moving towards a solution largely limiting a number of services affected by the new rules.
The day after the meeting of the shadow rapporteurs in Strasbourg on 13 November, the rapporteur proposed a limited list of services subject to the country of origin principle, such as radio programmes or content produced or ordered or mainly financed by a broadcasting body), excluding co-productions. There was also a proposal to keep circumvention services within the scope of article 3’s application, which covers programme retransmissions.
These proposals, however, do not appear to have satisfied expectations from the Christian Democrats and Eurosceptics. According to the information we have received, the EPP and ECR groups have managed to obtain the support of the ALDE on a range of alternative compromises. This information, however, has not been confirmed to us by the main interested party, the shadow rapporteur for the ALDE Group, Jean-Marie Cavada, from France.
These alternative compromises limit the application of the country of origin principle to news and current affairs programmes. They also suggest limiting retransmission obligations to radio broadcasters application services. This includes IP TV (television using the IP protocol) or cable-based services (such as video on demand or TV live on the Internet).
This kind of proposal, however, excludes applications such as Molotov.tv or Zattou. It now remains to be seen how MEPs will express themselves during the legal affairs committee vote on Tuesday 21 November. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)