The European Commission has written
to Portugal, Slovenia, Finland (concerning the autonomous region of
Åland) and the United Kingdom (concerning the British overseas territory
Gibraltar) seeking information about their implementation of the
Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive.
The Commission has asked
the responsible authorities to reply within 10 weeks. The fact-finding
letters are part of the Commission's efforts to ensure that the national
media laws of all Member States correctly implement all aspects of the
AVMS rules. The requests for information do not imply that the Directive
has been incorrectly implemented but simply that, at this stage, the
Commission has some outstanding questions concerning their
implementation of the Directive.
The Commission sent a first round
of letters to 16 Member States in March 2011 (Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech
Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, The
Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Slovakia and the United Kingdom IP/11/373)
and a second round of letters to further 8 Member States (Austria,
Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxemburg IP/11/1002)
in September 2011. Poland has only partially notified some measures to
implement the AVMS Directive into its national law and is currently
subject to an infringement procedure (IP/12/631).
The following wide range of issues related to the implementation of the Directive has been raised in the requests for clarification:
- the country of origin principle and jurisdiction issues concerning audiovisual media services;
- audiovisual commercial communications (including rules on product placement, sponsorship, teleshopping and codes of conduct for food high in fat, salt and sugar);
- the protection of minors;
- the promotion of European and independent works;
- the right of reply;
- basic obligations under the Directive (such as rules on accessibility, co-and self-regulation, registration of on-demand services);
- events of major importance to be broadcast on free to air television and short news extracts;
- cooperation between regulatory bodies.
The AVMS Directive (2010/13/EU)
ensures a Single Market and legal certainty for Europe's TV and
audiovisual industry by creating a level playing field for both
broadcast and on-demand audiovisual media services across frontiers
while preserving cultural diversity, protecting children and consumers,
safeguarding media pluralism and combating racial and religious hatred.
The Directive is based on the "country of origin" principle, whereby
audiovisual media service providers are subject to the regulations in
their country of origin only and cannot be subject to regulation in the
destination country except in very limited circumstances laid down by
Article 3 of the AVMS Directive - e.g. incitement to hatred). EU Member
States agreed to implement the AVMS Directive into their national law by
19 December 2009 (see IP/09/1983).
The original "Television without Frontiers" Directive was adopted in 1989 (IP/91/898) and amended for the first time in 1997 (IP/97/552). In December 2007, an amending Directive was adopted (see IP/07/1809, MEMO/08/803).
On 10 March 2010, the provisions of the original
"Television without
frontiers" Directive were merged with the provisions contained in the
amending directives to form the codified version of the now called
"Audiovisual Media Services" Directive.
