Brussels, 06/02/2004 (Agence Europe) - Next Thursday in Strasbourg, the European Parliament will hold a joint plenary discussion on the Media audiovisual programme. The EP will give its opinion at first reading, according to co-decision procedure, on reports by the Democratici di sinistra members, Gianni Vattimo ("Media Training programme 2001-2005") and Walter Veltroni ("Media Plus - development, distribution and promotion") (see EUROPE of 3 February, p.16). Adopting these two reports unanimously, the Culture and Media Committee approved the European Commission's proposal to prolong the two programmes without structural changes until 31 December 2006. The aim sought is to ensure continuity of the programmes until the establishment of a new generation of Community actions for the audiovisual sector, foreseen for after 2007, for the period covered by the financial perspectives 2007-2013. The budgetary adjustments proposed by the European Commission now give Media Plus a total budget of EUR 435.6 million (compared to the EUR 350 million initially foreseen for 2001-2005) and the Media Training programme of 57.4 million (compared to 50 million for the same period). Both rapporteurs suggest increasing the Media Plus-Development budget by EUR 18 million and that of Media Plus-Training by a further EUR 2 million.