EU-Abgeordnete stimmen über Pressefreiheit in Italien ab [en] 

Italy's premier, Silvio Berlusconi, exercises direct control over the main Italian TV channels and a number of newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, media advertising agencies, cinema studios and distributors.

Television is by far the main source of information for the majority of Italians, according to a number of independent surveys.

This anomalous situation began in the eighties and is the result of Berlusconi's entrepreneurship and political backing, as well as a lack of effort to regulate the matter from a number of centre-right and centre-left Italian governments in recent decades.

The issue is predominantly national in character. However, the EU treaties state that respecting fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of information, is one of the founding principles of the EU. The treaties provide for opening an extraordinary procedure against a member state in case of "clear risk of a serious breach" of these basic common principles. This provision has never been used.

The EU has the power to legislate on the topic of media pluralism, provided that its institutions are able to demonstrate the need for a European approach to a matter which has so far been dealt with at national level.

In a tense debate in the Parliament in Brussels yesterday (8 October), MEPs argued about the relevance of bringing national matters to the fore in the EU assembly.

The centre-right and right-wing groups (European People's Party, EPP; European Conservatives and Reformists, ECR; and Europe of Freedom and Democracy, EFD) unanimously backed the thesis that a debate on the alleged threat to freedom of information in Italy should be held in the Italian parliament rather than in Brussels or Strasbourg.

EPP group chair Joseph Daul denounced "the unfortunate use of this European institution for dealing with a national debate" and underlined that "the Italian Republic works as it should in Europe, democratically and with respect for the rule of law".

The Parliament nonetheless agreed on Wednesday (7 October) to vote on the issue at its next plenary session in Strasbourg, to take place on 19-22 October.

Social Democrat, Liberal and extreme left MEPs, in contrast, argued that the Italian situation, with a media tycoon-turned-prime minister, is an anomaly of European democracy and risks being exported to other member states if no action is taken.

EU directive on media pluralism?

Centre-left MEPs proposed that a new EU directive on media pluralism should be adopted by the European institutions to regulate the media landscape against dangers posed by media concentration. Berlusconi, Rupert Murdoch and other tycoons would likely be the target of the new rules.

The EPP appeared open to the idea of debating a possible EU directive on media pluralism, but stressed that strong support from member states would be necessary.

The European Commission, for its part, issued a cool response to the idea of a new directive. "Would legislation really solve the problem? Could we justify this under existing EU competences? Is there a cross-border dimension? All this would need to be clarified before we could start a legislative process," EU Media Commissioner Viviane Reding told MEPs during the debate.

She reminded the Parliament that the EU executive had already tried to push for such a directive in the nineties, but faced with total opposition from member states, the project collapsed. "Such a directive was considered to be far outside the competences of the EU," she recalled.

The Berlusconi saga

Although officially justified by a need to discuss the issue of media pluralism in Europe, the debate in the Parliament was a thinly-veiled informal trial of Berlusconi's alleged excessive power in Italy.

As for Berlusconi himself, the Italian prime minister had other personal concerns to deal with yesterday after the Italian constitutional court rejected the so-called 'Lodo Alfano', a law strongly desired by Berlusconi to guarantee top political officials in Italy immunity from prosecution.

Although such legislation is in force in other EU countries, such as France, the Italian top court ruled it unconstitutional. As a consequence, the prime minister will now have to face a number of trials which were frozen by 'Lodo Alfano'. He currently stands accused of bribing judges and fiscal evasion.

"We should not use the European institutions to address problems which the treaties say should be solved at home," EU Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said in her initial speech to the Parliament yesterday.

President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano recently warned that "the European Parliament cannot be a sounding board for national conflicts and political debates that take place in member states or their national parliaments. Nor can it act as a court of appeal against decisions taken by national parliaments or the actions of national governments".

EPP group chair Joseph Daul condemned "the unfair and dishonest trial brought against the government of a European state in which the rule of law is applied as rigorously as in the rest of Europe".

"The European Parliament should not be the sounding board for national conflicts, but the assembly has the right and the duty to provide common standards to safeguard basic common principles, and among these is the freedom of information," replied the S&D  group's vice-president of the Parliament, Gianni Pittella.

"Nobody can deny that there is a problem in Italy and in Europe about freedom of the press. A recent study found out that in Italy, Bulgaria and Romania, the freedom of information is at risk. The EU has to defend its fundamental values, and it has to intervene," said the chair of the Liberal group in the Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt.

Lothar Bisky, president of the GUE/NGL group and vice-chair of the culture and education committee in the European Parliament, said "the fact that [Berlusconi] brands the court's decision as a political witch hunt by 'red judges' demonstrates his adventurous notion of 'cavalier' democracy". 

"It's becoming difficult for the man who happily juggles with the principles of democracy. Apart from the separation of powers, the freedom of the press is also being ignored. Even the mass media require democratic legitimacy. In a mediatised society there can never be enough transparency and participation," Bisky said.