As a complement to its strategy on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (see EUROPE 12614/27) and its Action Plan for Democracy (see EUROPE 12615/1), on Thursday 3 December the European Commission presented a series of ten actions through which it intends to “support the recovery and transformation” of the European media and audiovisual sector.
A sector which, as Ministers and MEPs have recalled in recent days (see EUROPE 12605/23, 12610/12), is facing major difficulties that have been further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Among the support actions promised by the Commission in its new plan, several of them will be implemented from the beginning of next year. One such example is the creation of an interactive tool to help guide media companies towards support instruments, particularly financial ones, from which they can benefit.
At the beginning of 2021, the institution also plans to launch a “dialogue” with the audiovisual industry in order to agree on specific measures to improve access to, and availability of, audiovisual content from one EU country to another.
The director of the News Media Europe (NME) organisation, Wout van Wijk, welcomed in a press release a plan that bets “on the innovation, growth and job potential of the sector” and called for the rapid implementation of the various instruments.
It also welcomed the fact that it was coupled with the Action Plan for European Democracy and a strategy to implement the Charter of Fundamental Rights at a time “when threats to media freedom are rising across Europe and threatening democracy”.
Consult the ten actions proposed by the Commission: https://bit.ly/2Ic5R5A (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)