Brussels, 09/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - By accepting the compromise reached by the rapporteur Ruth Hieronymi (EPP-ED, Germany) and the German EU Council presidency on Tuesday 8 May, the European Parliament's education and culture committee set the plan to reform the Television without Frontiers Directive on track. The Council will be meeting on 24 May and, if member state ministers responsible for media policy do not make any amendments to the agreement, the culture and education committee will recommend that the Parliament adopt the agreement without further amendments. The plenary may vote on this in July.
Solutions were found on the following: 1) In line with the Parliament's vote at first reading, product placement would be allowed in a limited range of programmes, and then only under strict rules. It would be banned in “news and current affairs programmes, children's programmes, documentaries and programmes of advice”. Product integration and thematic placement shall be prohibited in principle. Before a programme containing product placement starts, and when it ends, a special sign should appear. This sign should also appear before commercial breaks. 2) The principle of country of origin should be maintained and there will be more control to ensure that this principle is not being abused. 3) On access for persons with disabilities, the position of the Parliament has been taken into account, and the Council will ensure that provisions on this are integrated into legislation and not just as part of the introductory remarks. 4) Council and Parliament also agreed that the special code of conduct towards children should be fully integrated in the binding paragraphs of the legislation. 5) On the frequency of commercial breaks, the Parliament's position was adopted. Advertising breaks would be allowed in films and other televised programmes every 30 minutes, except in series, serials, light entertainment programmes and documentaries. In children's programmes, advertising breaks will not be allowed unless the programmes are more than 30 minutes long. The upper limit for commercials is 12 minutes an hour.
Commenting on these decisions, Helga Trüpel (Greens/EFA, Germany), whose political group is opposed to the compromise, denounced the risk that “audiovisual media across Europe will fall victim to American-style advertising”. She went on to say: “Under the compromise, EU audiovisual media will be exposed to much more pervasive advertising than ever before”. Criticising the setting in place of a legal framework on product placement, she pointed out that this was “completely against the principles of the UNESCO convention on cultural diversity that the European Union strongly supports and so do the Greens. Therefore, we will continue to try and convince MEPs not to endorse this regrettable compromise in plenary”. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) welcomed the compromise and called on MEPs to adopt it as such in plenary. (gc)