The interinstitutional negotiations between the European Parliament and Council of the EU on the draft directive on audiovisual services took a new direction on 29 January when the co-legislators finally addressed sensitive issues in commercial communications and platforms for sharing videos. A provisional agreement may, however, emerge on the first point.
The draft legislation was unveiled in May 2016 to deal with new media such as YouTube and Netflix, introducing more flexible rules for advertising and supporting creativity in Europe though requirements to promote European works (see EUROPE 11558). The interinstitutional negotiations began on 10 July 2017. Six meetings have been held to date (see EUROPE 11917).
At the European Parliament, the Bulgarian culture minister, Boil Banov, said that at this stage, half of the articles have been examined and some points are now subject to provisional agreement (see EUROPE 11945).
The most recent negotiating meeting, which took place on 29 January, addressed two particularly sensitive issues, namely commercial communications and video-sharing platforms.
Advertising
More progress seems to have been made on the first question and during the meeting, Parliament suggested to the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council that it would accept the divisions of hours defended by the Council in return for stricter measures on isolated adverts and tele-purchasing.
This would mean allowing channels to broadcast adverts every 30 minutes up to 20% of total broadcasting time in the period from 6am to 6pm and again in the period from 6pm to midnight as desired by the Council.
The Commission suggested allowing adverts every 20 minutes and for advertising to take up 20% of broadcasting from 7am to 11pm, whereas Parliament wanted 30 minutes and for the member states that so desire to define four-hour peak-listening/viewing time slots during the day.
In exchange, Parliament wanted its proposal on isolated adverts and tele-purchasing to be accepted, which stipulates that this type of message would be allowed for sports programmes and once every 30 minutes in other cases (the Council wanted this to remain exceptional).
Otherwise the co-legislators seem to agree that the broadcasting of tele-purchasing should be banned during programmes for children, as the MEPs desire, and that public service messages and calls for charity donations should be covered by the advertising quotas (which Parliament does not desire).
Video-sharing platforms
In parallel, the co-legislators discussed, for the first time, the measures that will apply to online video-sharing platforms.
A source involved in the talks said that the focus was put on definitions, reasons and protective measures.
It appears that Parliament and Council representatives agree to introduce a reference to social media. In terms of definitions, the two institutions still need to agree – the European Parliament insists on the provision of content, while the Council focuses on storage.
The other points addressed during the talks covered the freedom to receive and rebroadcast (Article 3), human dignity (Article 6) and media education (Article 33a).
The negotiators reached provisional agreement on media education, whereby the member states shall promote and take measures to allow the development of media skills and report back to the European Commission four years after the directive comes into force, and then every three years after that. The Commission will be responsible for publishing guidelines on the scope of the reports.
In terms of derogations to the obligation of broadcasting and re-broadcasting, the negotiators seem to have reached provisional agreement on extending the period of time for reaching an out-of-court settlement from 15 days to a month.
On the question of human dignity, the parties still need to agree on an introductory formulation, but they agree that member states should be required to ensure that audiovisual services provided by suppliers coming under their power do not contain encouragements to commit violence or hatred based on a motive identified in Article 21 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, or encouragement in advertising to commit terrorist acts (referring to Directive 2017/54/EU).
The next trilogue meeting is scheduled for 6 February. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)