Representatives of the European Parliament and Council of the EU will need a fifth negotiating meeting to conclude their talks on the end of geographic blocking for some radio and TV programmes.
At the inter-institutional trilogue talks on Monday 8 October (see EUROPE 12112), they clashed again over Article 2, in particular on the definition of 'in house production'.
A fifth meeting will therefore be needed, the date of which has not yet been set, to find a solution. Several sources seem to indicate that agreement could be reached if the Parliament were to make a sideways step on the principle of the country of origin (Article 2) and if the Council of the EU did likewise for direct injection (Article 4).
Country of origin vs direct injections
On the question of the country of origin (Article 2), the European Parliament has called for a more restricted scope than the Council. Finally, the co-legislators might decide to apply this principle to information and news programmes and to own productions or broadcasters’ in-house productions.
It also remains for the co-legislators to clarify the notion of 'in-house productions'. Also for the EPP Group at the European Parliament, which wants the most restricted scope of application, to accept it.
For direct injections (Article 4a of the European Parliament’s negotiating mandate), it appears that the Council is prepared to accept the Parliament’s request to include this issue (which allows broadcasters to relay their programmes directly to retransmission networks) in the future legislation. Assuming, that is, that a degree of flexibility is granted to the member states.
Hence the co-legislators may agree to transform the draft regulation (as initially proposed by the European Commission) into a draft directive. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)