No new media freedom laws, says EC

SILVIO Berlusconi’s stranglehold on Italian TV and his flurry of writs against some of Europe’s best-known publications led members of the European Parliament to demand legislation guaranteeing press freedom and plurality.

But the European Commission said it had no intention of drawing up such legislation despite the issue of media freedom being an article of the EU’s treaties.

The demands split parliament, with the centre-right siding with Berlusconi’s European People’s Party while the left and liberals insisted something had to be done.