On Thursday 11 March, the European Commission defended its cautious approach to ending geo-blocking for audiovisual works. Commissioner Johannes Hahn has confirmed that a dialogue with stakeholders will be launched before the summer, before considering possible legislative measures by the end of 2022.
Entering into force in December 2018, Geo-blocking Regulation 2018/302 prohibits unjustified geographical restrictions on the sale of goods and services within the EU. It leaves out copyrighted content such as e-books, music, video games and films, as well as audiovisual content, instructing the European Commission to come back to this if necessary.
On Thursday, Mr Hahn told MEPs that he was taking the issue very seriously.
“The aim of the dialogue is to identify concrete measures to improve access to and availability of audiovisual content across borders in the Union. [...] This dialogue could help define specific targets to be achieved and identify concrete actions that could be taken to achieve these targets”, he said, echoing commitments made in an implementation report published in November 2020 (see EUROPE 12612/14). He went on to say that the Commission would closely monitor progress, looking in particular at “any improvements achieved in terms of wider distribution of audiovisual works and consumer access to a variety of audiovisual content”.
Parliament deeply divided
In the European Parliament, opinions differ as to whether such content should be included in the scope of the Regulation. This was demonstrated by the brief exchange of views that took place on Thursday in a written question to the Commission.
“The 2018 Regulation is far from what citizens expect, given the exclusion of copyrighted content. Market self-regulation has failed”, said Marcel Kolaja (Greens/EFA, the Czech Republic).
“A German has access to 73% of content while a Greek is limited to 1%. The industry must agree to voluntarily remove these barriers voluntarily. I hope the Commission will be ready to act before the end of this legislature”, said Dita Charanzová (Renew Europe, the Czech Republic).
French MEP Emmanuel Maurel (GUE/NGL) opposed lifting these derogations, which would result in a sell-out of culture to large digital platforms. “Such an extension to the book industry would endanger bookshops and publishing houses and would further strengthen quasi-monopoly situations such as that of Amazon. This would also render the Single Price Act obsolete. It would be the same for music or films”, he said. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)