During their meeting on 26 March on the reform of audiovisual media service rules, the Council of the EU and European Parliament did not manage to conclude the question of video sharing platforms covered by the new rules or the question involving financial contributions for European productions. These questions will therefore be on the agenda of the 9th trialogue scheduled for 26 April.
It should be recalled that the draft text presented in May 2016 aims to tackle questions involving new media such as Youtube and Netflix, as well as introduce more flexible rules for advertising and support for creativity in Europe through obligations on promoting European content (see EUROPE 11558). The inter-institutional negotiations began on 10 July 2017 have so far produced eight trialogue meetings (see EUROPE 11986).
According to the information we have received, the meeting on 26 March helped to obtain a provisional agreement on the provisions relating to human dignity. The negotiators inserted a reference to human dignity in the provision concerning the grounds for intervention by Member States (Article 6), on the condition that human dignity would not constitute a separate ground to derogate to the country of origin principle (article 3).
They made slight progress on the video sharing platforms (article 28a) but did not agree on the definition of these platforms (article 1(1) a) and how to deal with livestreaming or the protective measures that should be implemented (article 28a (2)).
During the meeting that lasted an hour longer than planned, the co-legislators also tackled the question of signal integrity (article 7 (b)), the promotion of European content (article 13 (2) and cooperation between the national regulators (article 30-a). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)