The European Commission presented its Proposal for revising the Directive on 13 December 2005. The Proposal is subject to the co-decision procedure involving the European Parliament and the Council, with the second reading expected to be completed by October 2007.

The EBU played an active role in the consultations leading up to the Commission Proposal. Subsequently, in its Initial Contribution of 3 April 2006 to first reading, the EBU welcomed the Commission Proposal to modernize the Television without Frontiers Directive and to extend it to cover all audiovisual media services, irrespective of the technology or distribution platform used. It also welcomed the proposed graduated approach, founded on the distinction between linear and non-linear services, which will make it possible to offer an appropriate response to matters arising from the development of new media. For clarification purposes, the EBU was nevertheless supporting a number of amendments, these being mainly to the definitions proposed by the Commission.

The EBU fully supports the final compromise text negotiated between the European institutions in April 2007, which takes comprehensive account of the EBU's views. It welcomes the political agreement of the Council on this text, which was reached at the meeting of the Culture and Audiovisual Council on 24 May 2007, and encourages the plenary of the European Parliament to adopt the same text, thereby following the recommendation of its Culture Committee.

To provide easy, up-to-date access to relevant documents in the legislative process, the EBU provides on this page links to selected documents of the European institutions, as well as to recent EBU contributions.

For further information click here.

Please note that certain links are not active as the translations are not yet available.