Brussels, 25/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has confirmed that it has received a complaint from the Association of private cable operators in Germany (VPRT) concerning the public television companies ARD and ZDF. According to VPRT, these companies do not keep separate accounts for their public service activities for which they receive subsidies authorised by European rules, from their commercial activities, which makes it difficult to examine the possible crossed subsidies. Tilman Lueder, spokesman for Mario Monti, indicated that, "This complaint is very interesting insofar as it concerns transparency between public and private interests. W will be dealing with the complaint".
In July 2000, the Commission adopted several modifications to its directive on transparency which demanded companies with public service obligations to keep separate accounts in order that public service missions were not misused or used to finance commercial activities (crossed subsidies), which would constitute State Aid. The spokesman explained, "We are already in contact with German regarding the transposition of this crucial directive but the country has not yet replied to a series of questions. Mr Lueder also acknowledged that the transposition was difficult to carry out in Germany's media sector because it is organised in a decentralised way within cooperatives that are dependent on the Länder. Mr Lueder did point out, however that Member States were obliged to carry out this transposition in all sectors.