Mr President, this afternoon I am speaking not only on my own behalf, as I have worked closely with the rapporteur, Mrs Echerer, but also more particularly on behalf of our shadow rapporteur, Mrs Fourtou, who is sorry that she is unable to be here to share in these comments. On her behalf, I want to begin by thanking Mrs Echerer on a number of scores. Firstly, I want to thank her for quite rightly bringing this matter to the attention of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and then taking the initiative to draw up the report. This is very much to her credit, and in this matter she has been very keen to share her insight and concerns with us and to invite us to contribute to it. That spirit in which she approached the report is clearly shown in the quality of her work and, to echo what the Commissioner said, it is a very well-balanced document. It presents all sides very fairly, but it does not shrink from making a number of important and sharply-focused recommendations. From what the Commissioner said, I dare to hope that in his communication he will take on board a number of the points Mrs Echerer has made. So this is a very timely report. It also shows the benefits of having someone with strong expertise and background in a particular profession in this case, in the acting profession, on the stage someone who is a creative artist, who knows the subject, and of being able to combine that with the engagement of other colleagues. This question of balance and balance of interest is clearly at the heart of this report. The balance between the creators of works the producers and the people who exploit them and use them I prefer to say the customers, because that is what they are in the whole arrangement is absolutely crucial. That balance now is in many ways an uncertain one, because we are in such a volatile area of transition at the moment, not only with the explosion of digital content and digital distribution, and new forms of access to customers, but also with new creative works that are available for exploitation in the digital media world. For example, I have been doing work recently which has brought me into contact with people who are producing computer games and interactive computer games and the scale of that multibillion dollar, global business is producing enormous new opportunities for creators in every field, whether in illustration, music composition or script production. We need to encourage that, but we must make sure that we stimulate the development of those fields and that people are properly rewarded. Indeed, as we move into the third generation of mobile technology, one of the major concerns about the providers of electronic communications services and they have said that to us in our capacity as Members of Parliament working in this field is that they want us to help get the framework for content delivery right and to make sure that we get the creative works out into the marketplace because they want those creative works there to stimulate their electronic communication services. This is not just an abstract piece of work. This is a further fundamental piece of thinking around the internal market. It relates directly back to our work on the Lisbon Process and to creating the most dynamic and knowledge-driven economy in the world, using the knowledge we have to link creative works as well. One of the issues over which we had quite a lot of debate with Mrs Echerer indeed Mr Karas referred to it, and much of what came from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and indeed from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport was also included in our final vote is the question of the operation of the marketplace in connection with collective rights management. I was pleased that Mrs Echerer accepted our view that, in the internal market for services, and this week Commissioner Bolkestein has been here presenting a wide-ranging new proposal for that in that new proposal for the internal market for services, those elements of collecting societies' activities where they are directly providing services to their members need to be treated like any other service provision and looked at in the context of the cross-border market for services. That is absolutely right because, as Mr Karas said, increasingly the distribution of rights is no longer going to be centred around national monopolies. The customers and I come back to that word increasingly want that 'one-stop shop'. They want to be able to go and access rights for created products that will allow them to distribute digitally not just across the European Union, but indeed in other major markets as well. That challenge to internationalise the process, to look outside the traditional borders of it, is something that the collective societies as we know are facing up to, but we need to provide them with the right framework and encouragement to do that. In conclusion, the key to that will be transparency of their activities so that all their customers can see exactly what package of services they are getting. To conclude, I echo what my colleague Mr Karas said, that I also heard with regret this week the news that Mrs Echerer will not be standing again for this Parliament. So this may be the last chance I have in plenary to say publicly from our side of the House that I very much enjoyed working with her. This report shows the sort of open and progressive contribution that she has made in her willingness to work with us. As she moves her activities to another stage, or should I say back to the stage where she started her career, I am sure that all of us will join in wishing her well, thanking her very much for her work, and we can demonstrate our support for that by our unanimous support for the report when we vote later on.

Political group: PPE-DE