A new inter-institutional meeting on ending the geographical blockage in the EU for certain radio and television programmes (the so-called ‘CabSat’ proposal) is due to take place on Wednesday 28 November. This meeting, announced as final, could be the last chance meeting. According to one observer, a further failure could block the parties and force them to relegate this issue to the back burner..
In particular, the draft regulation aims to promote the cross-border provision of ancillary online services and to facilitate the digital retransmission of television and radio broadcasts from other Member States (see EUROPE 11624). At this stage, four trialogues have already taken place; the last one was on 8 October (see EUROPE 12113). The main stumbling blocks are the country of origin principle (Article 2) and the review clause (Article 6).
According to our information, even if nothing is yet certain, the co-legislators would move towards a directive rather than a regulation. They would limit the scope to news and current affairs programmes and broadcasters' own productions. On direct injections (Article 4a of the European Parliament mandate), it seems that the Council is ready to accept the Parliament's request to include this issue (which allows broadcasters to relay their programmes directly to the retransmission networks) in future legislation. This is provided that Member States are given some flexibility. There remains the question of the review clause which the Commission should verify the need to extend its scope after a certain number of years. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)