The European Parliament’s Committee on Culture (CULT) debated, on Tuesday 28 March, its position on the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). For the time being, no text has been presented, but the rapporteur, Sabine Verheyen (EPP, German), has issued guidelines... and the first divergences are emerging.
Legal basis and legislative act
In particular, MEPs have raised doubts about the legal basis, i.e. Article 114 TFEU, on the Internal Market. “We are not talking about a commodity here, but a cultural good”, said Petra Kammerevert (S&D, German).
Similarly, the choice of a legislative act is not unanimous, with Ms Kammerevert and Ms Verheyen pointing out that some elements of the text are more akin to the provisions of a directive. Other MEPs, such as Irena Joveva (Renew Europe, Slovenian), argued for the need to have legislation “directly applicable across the Union”.
On a pragmatic note, Ms Verheyen said she was waiting for the legal opinion of the EU Council to have a “reliable legal basis to work with”. “I don’t want to see a situation where, once we have made good progress, Member States refer to the Amsterdam Protocol or question the legal basis”, she explained. It should be noted that the Amsterdam Protocol enshrines the competences of the Member States in the audiovisual sector.
EU competences
More broadly, not everyone is convinced of the EU’s competence to legislate on the media sector or of the benefits of harmonising rules at European level. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to destroy systems that are already working well”, said Ms Kammerevert.
“No one should be afraid of this legislation, except the ones who would like to limit media freedom or abuse the media for their partial interest”, Ms Joveva said. This is all the more so because, in her view, EMFA “is actually a very soft way of slowly pushing towards EU cooperation of national regulators, public scrutiny of vital information, and creating some EU-wide additional safety nets”.
For her part, Ms Verheyen called for a “good balance between national and European competences” while respecting “cultural plurality, national rights and obligations and the objectives of the internal market”.
Points of convergence
On the substance, however, there was convergence on a number of points. This is particularly true of the need to ensure the independence of the future European Board for Media Services from the European Commission.
The CULT committee also focused on the obligation of platforms to notify media before suspending their content for non-compliance with the terms of use (“media privilege”), a measure reminiscent of “media exemption”, which was finally withdrawn from the Digital Services Act (DSA). “We won’t introduce it here either, but we need better protection mechanisms”, Ms Verheyen said, proposing professional codes for platforms.
Finally, Ms Verheyen deplored the lack of sanctions for non-compliance. “Generally, a regulation clearly states who is responsible for what and what happens when the requirements are not met”, she said. Otherwise, “it will be a nice text, but it will not be implemented or acted upon”.
A tight schedule
The rapporteurs of the Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE), Ramona Strugariu (Renew Europe, Romanian), and the Committee on the Internal Market (IMCO), Geoffroy Didier (EPP, French), briefly presented their respective opinions on the text, which will be voted on in June.
After delays caused by conflicts of competence, in particular between the LIBE and CULT committees, Ms Verheyen called for speeding up the pace to reach a European Parliament position at the October plenary session and, ultimately, an agreement with the EU Council before the end of the legislature. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)