20 Amendments of Frank ENGEL related to 2011/2246(INI)
Amendment 2 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 3 a (new)
Citation 3 a (new)
– having regard to Protocol No 29, annexed to the TEU, on the system of public broadcasting in the Member States,
Amendment 4 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 5 a (new)
Citation 5 a (new)
– having regard to the independent study, conducted at the Commission's request, in which a Media Monitoring Tool is defined with indicators to highlight threats to media pluralism,
Amendment 8 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 7
Citation 7
– having regard to its resolutions of 20 November 2002 on media concentration2 , of 4 September 2003 on the situation as regards fundamental rights in the European Union (2002)3 , of 4 September 2003 on Television without Frontiers4 , of 6 September 2005 on the application of Articles 4 and 5 of Directive 89/552/EEC (‘Television without Frontiers’), as amended by Directive 97/36/EC, for the period 2001-20025 , of 22 April 2004 on the risks of violation, in the EU and especially in Italy, of freedom of expression and information (Article 11(2) of the Charter of Fundamental6 , of 25 September 2008 on concentration and pluralism in the media in the European Union7 , of 25 November 2010 on public service broadcasting in the digital era: the future of the dual system, and of 10 March 2011 on media law in Hungary8 ,
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B a (new)
Recital B a (new)
Ba. whereas the changes in the media world and in communication technologies have redefined the arena of information exchange and the way in which people are informed and public opinion is shaped;
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B b (new)
Recital B b (new)
Bb. whereas a vibrant, competitive and pluralistic (audiovisual and written) media landscape stimulates the participation of citizens in public debate, which is essential for a well-functioning democratic system;
Amendment 41 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
G. whereas on 16 January 2007 the Commission launched a ‘three-step approach’, comprising a Commission Staff Working Paper on Media Pluralism, an independent study on media pluralism in EU Member States, with indicators for assessing media pluralism and identifying potential risks in the EU Member States (in 2007), and a Commission Communication on the indicators for media pluralism in the EU Member States (in 2008), followed by a public consultation12 ;
Amendment 53 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital L
Recital L
L. whereas concerns arise in relation to the challenges facing public service broadcastersand private media in terms of editorial independence, staff recruitment, pluralism, neutrality and quality of information, access and funding, caused by undue political and financial interference, as well as the economic crisis;
Amendment 61 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital M a (new)
Recital M a (new)
Ma. whereas the speeding up of the news cycle has led to severe shortcomings of journalists, such as the omission of controlling and double-checking journalistic sources;
Amendment 78 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Calls on the Member States for the devising of procedures and mechanisms for the selection and appointment of media heads, management boards, media councils and regulatory bodies that are transparent, based on merit and indisputable experience and that ensure professionalism, integrity, independence, consensus across the political and social spectrum and continuilegal certainty, instead of political or partisan criteria in the framework of a spoil system linked to the results of elections or the will of those in power;
Amendment 92 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. RUnderlines the fundamental role of a genuinely balanced European dual system, in which private and public service media play their respective roles; recalls the important role of the public service media, funded by citizens through the State, and their institutional duties to provide high quality and accurate and reliable information; stresses that the private media have similar duties in relation to information, notablyin particular information of institutional and political nature, in particular on the occasionsuch as in the context of elections, referenda, etc;
Amendment 99 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Stresses the importance of appropriate, proportionate and stable funding for public service media in order to guarantee political and economical independence, so that public service media may fulfil their full remit - including their social, educational, cultural and democratic role - and that they are able to adapt to digital change and contribute to an inclusive information and knowledge society with representative, high- quality media available to all;
Amendment 112 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Believes that media ownership and management should be transparent and not concentrated; calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure competition so as to address and prevent dominant positions and guarantee the access of new entrants on the market; calls for rules to ensure that conflicts of interest are properly addressed and resolved; highlights that advertising and sponsoring mayshould never cause interference with the editorial line of media;
Amendment 130 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Underlines the importance of ensuring the independence of journalists, both from internal pressures from editors or owners and externally from political or economic lobbies or other interest groups; highlights the fact that the right of access to documents and information is fundamental and calls for and points at the importance of editorial charters to prevent owners, governments or external stakeholders from interfering with news content; highlights the fact that the right of access to documents and information is fundamental and calls upon the Member states to establish a solid and extensive legal framework with regard to freedom of governmental information and access to public documents; appeals to the Member States to provide legal guarantees regarding the full protection of the confidentiality of sources principle and calls for the strict application of the European Court of Human Rights case-law in this area, including in relation to whistle-blowing; calls for journalists to be protected from threats and violence, as investigative journalists are often threatened as a result of their activities; highlights the need to support and promote investigative journalism and to promote ethical journalism in the media by developing professional standardsurges the Member States and the European Commission to come up with mechanisms to support and appropriate redress procedures; mote independent investigative journalism;
Amendment 135 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Stresses that an increasing number of journalists find themselves employed under precarious conditions, lacking social guarantees common on the normal job market and calls for an improvement of the working conditions of media professionals;
Amendment 151 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8a. Emphasises the growing importance of news aggregators, search engines and other intermediaries in the dissemination and access to information and news content on the internet and calls upon the Commission to include these internet actors in the EU regulatory framework when revising the Audiovisual Media Services Directive in order to tackle the problems of discrimination of content and distortion of source selection;
Amendment 154 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 b (new)
Paragraph 8 b (new)
8b. Encourages the Commission and the Member States – in the framework of the Commission's media literacy policy – to pay sufficient attention to the importance of media education to provide citizens with the skills of critical interpretation and the ability to sift through the ever- growing volume of information;
Amendment 156 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 c (new)
Paragraph 8 c (new)
8c. Calls on the Commission to check whether the Member States allocate their broadcasting license on the basis of objective, transparent, non-discriminating and proportional criteria;
Amendment 168 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Calls on the Commission to institutionalise EU-level cooperation and coordination on the media, for instance by establishing a European regulators' group for audiovisual media services, and to harmonise the status of the national regulatory authorities provided for in Articles 29 and 30 of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) and strengthen their role in the next revision of the AVMSD, ensuring that they are independent, impartial and transparent as regards their decision-making processes, the exercise of their powers and the monitoring process, and that they have appropriate sanctioning powers to ensure that their decisions are implemented;
Amendment 191 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Calls the Commission and the Member States to ensure transparency in media ownership and to ascertain whether public funds are used efficiently by Member States in relation to the public service media;
Amendment 199 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
Paragraph 13 a (new)
13a. Recognises the changing media landscape in particular in the digital environment and the increasing dominant position of major technological companies, including search engines, which could result in unfair competition with the press sector and breach of copyright legislation; calls on the Commission to ensure that EU competition and copyright rules are enforced in this respect;