The European Parliament’s Committee on Culture (CULT) adopted, on Tuesday 28 March, a report deploring the state of implementation of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) (see EUROPE 13075/23) with 26 votes in favour and 3 abstentions. The central message: Member States must implement the Directive in its entirety and “without further delay”.
The report, presented by Petra Kammerevert (S&D, Germany), deplores “both the insufficient will on the part of some Member States to transpose the Directive in a timely manner and the [European] Commission’s overall reluctance to initiate infringement procedures”. While the AVMSD was revised in 2018, the report also criticises the “late publication of the guidelines” in 2020.
On the substance, the text stresses in particular the need to clarify the links between horizontal legislation (Digital Services Act, DSA) and standards (code of best practice on disinformation) applicable to audiovisuals and the AVMSD. For MEPs, sectoral legislation must prevail and the objectives of the AVMSD must always be respected.
The report also calls for better promotion of European Works “in the full range of European linguistic diversity, taking into account official languages as well as regional and minority languages”. In this respect, it reiterates the importance of maintaining the 30% quota of European Works in video-on-demand (VOD) services and calls for the monitoring of measures taken by Member States to ensure the visibility of European Works of public interest.
Finally, MEPs call for better accessibility of audiovisual services for people with disabilities, better protection of minors from harmful content, clarification of the “country of origin” principle (see EUROPE 13063/29) and to consider common minimum requirements to encourage investment in audiovisual production in the EU.
The report was the subject of 170 amendments, partly translated into 21 compromise amendments (all adopted), as well as an opinion from the European Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO).
To read the report: https://aeur.eu/f/62w
The compromise amendments: https://aeur.eu/f/62t
And the IMCO Opinion: https://aeur.eu/f/62v (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)