Brussels, 10/02/2006 (Agence Europe) - Following the Coreper meeting on 8 February, it seems increasingly likely that media defamation will be excluded from the draft Rome II directive on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations, said Angela Mills Wade of the European Publishers Council (EPC) in a press release. On 31 January, Commissioner Franco Frattini indicated to the legal affairs committee of the EP that he favoured such an approach, saying that “the only way to break the deadlock was to exclude this point from scope of the future regulation” (see EUROPE 9124). According to the EPC press release, the last Coreper meeting revealed that the United Kingdom and Belgium seemed about to join France and perhaps Poland in supporting a rule based on the country of origin of the media (that is, the country to which the publication or the broadcast is principally directed and in which editorial control is exercised). This position is in line with the one adopted by the Parliament last July (see EUROPE 8987). However, several countries, including France, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Slovakia and Malta, could accept total exclusion of the media from the scope of the directive. “We will be calling on all Member States to look carefully at the latest options,” said Mrs Mills Wade, and to find “a solution based on the law of the country of origin of the media in line with the European Parliament's first reading majority vote”. Nonetheless, she added, “exclusion would be preferable to the alternatives which automatically favour the plaintiff, without regard for where the media is principally directed”.
The proposal will be discussed at the JHA Council of Ministers meeting on 20-21 February.