Brussels, 25/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - As announced in EUROPE of 18 July, p.9, the European Commission decided, on Wednesday, to attack France before the Court of Justice concerning the Evin law and its application in order to ban French producers of alcoholic beverages from having access to the televised services market, sports sponsoring and cross-border advertising. The Commission considers that the implementation measures, translated in the form of a "code of conduct", taken by the French authorities in application of this law (which regulates the advertising of alcoholic drinks) are of a kind that disproportionately restricts the provisions of cross-border media sales services by the organisers of sporting events in other Member States. It also considers that such measures have the effect of preventing producers of alcoholic drinks from buying advertising and sponsoring services from the organisers of sports events in other Member Sates. After detailed negotiations with the French party, the Commission came to the conclusion that the final version of this code was not, either regarding content or legal form, of a kind that would allow satisfactory elimination of the barriers that it had challenged in its reasoned opinion.
We recall that the Commission began its inquiry after complaints filed when the CSA intervened to prevent the televised broadcasting in France of certain sports events taking place in other Member States, for the reason that there were publicity hoardings for alcoholic drinks in the stadiums. After this, the CSA negotiated a "code of conduct" with the French broadcasters to facilitate the interpretation of the Evin law. The code operates a distinction between "multilateral" demonstrations that may be broadcast and "binational" events that come under the advertising ban on advertising placed around the playing fields or on the teeshirts of players.