EBU Head of Legal Regulatory Services, Dr Richard Burnley, spoke to over 250 academic, regulatory and practitioner experts at the Annual Conference of the Institut für Rundfunkrecht, Cologne University on 23 May.

Dr Burnley’s speech focused on the EU Member State's discretion to define the online remit of their public service media (PSM) and the limits of EU State aid law to affect that definition.

He emphasized that recent attempts to oblige Member States to designate strict “white list” (permissible)/”black list” (non-permissible) PSM services and to limit the duration of catch-up TV services and PSM online news had no basis in EU law.

Moreover, he referred to recent case law that confirms that the funding of a legitimate service only becomes illegal State aid if it "renders it impossible or excessively difficult for a private operator to conduct business in the Spanish broadcasting market" – a very high threshold in practice.

Dr Burnley also underlined that a formalistic approach can sometimes lead to absurd results in the market that are ultimately damaging for consumers and citizens. For that reason other goals, such as media pluralism and the fulfilment of specific public interest objectives, must often be taken into account when applying competition law.