The European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) held, on Tuesday 25 October, a public hearing on the implementation of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. This is an opportunity to hold the European Commission to account for its transposition and implementation. While Member States had until 19 September 2020 to transpose it, MEPs deplored the late and incomplete transposition across the EU.
A representative of the European Commission conceded that “while in initial phases of transposition we were concerned”, so much so that the Commission “launched infringement proceedings two months after the transposition deadlines against many Member States”, but that “the situation has evolved dramatically”. He assured that all Member States had notified their measures, with the exception of Ireland, which is still the subject of an appeal to the Court of Justice of the EU (see EUROPE 12956/31).
“Of course this late transposition in some Member States implies that unfortunately today we still don’t have a clear picture of how implementation works across Europe”, the Commission representative acknowledged, while promising that the Commission would monitor the situation closely in the coming months and years.
Furthermore, the institution is working on publishing a report on media trends in the EU in early 2023 and will propose “an assessment report with possible revision proposals” in 2026. The CULT committee is also preparing a report on the implementation of the directive for November.
One reason why the implementation of the directive is so important is that the Media Freedom Act (MFA) amends some of its provisions. This is the case, for example, of the new European Committee for Media Services. This independent body would replace the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA), established by the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)