Brussels, 09/05/2005 (Agence Europe) - At the end of April, the EP Committee on Culture and Education adopted the own-initiative report by Marie-Hélène Descamps (EPP-ED, France) on the proposal of directive on services in the internal market. The report excludes cultural, audiovisual and press services as well as gambling activities from the scope of the legislative proposal. It was adopted with 29 votes in favour, two against and one abstention.
The main amendment of the report adds to the list of services excluded from the scope of the directive “whatever their mode of production, distribution and transmission, including sound radio broadcasting and written press publication and distribution services” as well as cinema services, cultural services, the services of intellectual property rights collective management services. The integration of such services in the directive would be detrimental to the competence of Member States in the cultural area, the parliamentary committee states. For the same reason, another amendment excludes all gambling activities including lotteries and betting transactions.
MEPs recall that the audiovisual services are the subject of a sector-specific approach at Community level through Directive 89/552/EEC on Television Without Borders. The directive guarantees the free provision of television services in the internal market under the legislation of the Member State of origin which is only applied to coordinated areas and comprises major compensations such as the possibility to establish production and diffusion quotas.
The EP Committee on Culture and Education is the third committee to adopt an own-initiative report on the services directive. Those before it were the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and food Safety (see EUR5OPE 8910) and the Committee on Industry (see EUROPE 8936). In a press release, the association of cinema and television producers, EUROCINEMA, welcomed the adoption of the report which is a “positive sign” for revision of the directive.