Brussels, 09/12/2004 (Agence Europe) - Patrick Gaubert MEP (UMP) has written to president Barroso asking him to review the "Television without Borders" directive, which he believes outmoded, as well as measures that would create greater visibility at the college of European regulators, set up in 2003. The reason behind this approach can be explained by the recent polemic in France on the subject of the Arab channel Al-Manar, which is said to be close to Hezbollah and whose programmes are diffused through Arabsat and the telecommunications company Eutelsat in Paris. The spokesperson for European Commissioner for audio-visual affairs, Viviane Reding, previously indicated that this channel was free to diffuse material on European channels if it respected the rules in the "Television without Borders" directive, notably its Article 22 demanding that programmes do not "cause any incitement to hatred based on race, sex, religion or nationality". The spokesperson pointed out that , "If these rules are respected, Al-Manar has the right to go onto the airwaves in the 25 Member States. if it does not respect the rules (Upper French Council for audio-visual Affairs), the CSA has the right to interrupt diffusion of these programmes" (EUROPE 25 November p 16). According to Patrick Gaubert, the Al-Manar case has revealed a legal loophole in need of urgent rectification. The MEP (who did not reveal the contents of the channel, is proposing revision of the directive) and aims to get the college of regulators to tackle the issue of channels based outside Europe. According to Gaubert, it is December p inadmissible that, "a channel whose HQ is based outside Europe can cover the whole of Community territory thanks to an agreement concluded with a single Member State, without consultation of the others". The regulator in a country should therefore, "be consulted for the opinion of the college of European regulators before concluding any agreement" with a non-Community channel.