31/01/2014 Session
The Council of Europe should revise and modernise the 24-year-old European Convention on Transfrontier Television to take account of the latest technological standards, PACE has said.
In a resolution based on a report by James Clappison (United Kingdom, EDG), the Assembly called on the European Union to resume talks with the Council of Europe on this question, in order to create a truly pan-European legal framework for media freedom issues.
Plans to update the convention were stopped in 2011 after objections from the European Commission that it alone had exclusive competence in this field as regards European Union member States.
Yet 13 of the 33 Council of Europe States to have ratified the convention are not EU members. The current situation, the Assembly said, prevents these countries from having an updated legal instrument in a constantly-changing media environment, with a consequent risk of diverging standards.