TV stations asked to ‘beef up’ coverage by EU Commission

TELEVISION stations give EU news less than a tenth of the airtime they give national news, undermining citizens’ right to information and preventing them having a democratic input, according to the European Commission.

The public wants more information about the Union and in the eight months since the launch of their YouTube site, they have had 10 million views, Commission vice-president Margot Wallstrom said.

To overcome this, she plans to help television stations throughout Europe increase their coverage by co-operating with one another, by providing them with news and documentaries about what is happening in Brussels and beef-up existing information for the public and journalists.

Ms Wallstrom, whose job is communicating Europe, said it was unfortunate that the media was not giving more time to reporting the EU.

“We shape the everyday lives of people in Europe so it’s necessary to provide them with the information.”

The scheme was devised with the help of public service and private broadcasters. She denied the commission was trying to control the media or provide propaganda.

“I hope we can move away from being accused of propaganda every time we give out information.

“We will provide this service while fully respecting the independence of broadcasters. Citizens have a right to information and to have a say in the EU. Communications is about strengthening democracy.”

As well as providing reports in the EU’s 22 official languages, the commission will support a network of TV stations to help them produce more programmes and news about the EU and make their archive audio-visual library more accessible to the professional media and citizens.

They will also support the launch in July of the EuroNews service in Arabic, increase the news content of its existing EU satellite channel, Europe by Satellite, and increase its use of the internet through such channels as EUTube.