MEDIA : A PLEA FOR EUROPEAN INDICATORS OF MEDIA DIVERSITY.

• Position: Media independence for media industry

Commissioners Viviane Reding (information society) and Margot Wallstrom (institutional relations and communication strategy) certainly do not lack imagination when it comes to finding ways to relaunch the debate on media concentrations in the EU. In a draft communication scheduled to be released on 16 January, they invite the European Commission not to propose Community action in this area, which is guaranteed to fail anyway, but to initiate a multi-phase study with the aim of creating European indicators on the diversity of media.

The idea is to allow citizens to "verify to what extent the media has achieved their goal of independence with regard to certain sources of influence, whether they be economic or intellectual" in response to certain concerns expressed notably by the European Parliament. These tools will be developed in four different stages.

Stage one: The Commission will present the "relevant aspects of media diversity" (internal and external diversity, relations between politics, economic interests and media or even access to the contents of this media). The analysis will include profiles of the different member states with information about the different national regulations relating to media ownership, restrictions linked to political parties and other organisations as well as a preliminary analysis of the audiovisual and publishing markets.

Stage two: The Commission will draw up a "complete study of media diversity in EU member states". And, contrary to other studies of this nature, this...