Mr President, as the representative of a thriving but also highly endangered media centre – namely Munich – I welcome this question by the Committee on Culture and today's debate. I must make one thing quite clear: the European Parliament has a very long tradition in media policy, especially on television issues in Europe. It dates back to the beginning of the 1980s with the highly prophetic report on European television by the former Culture Minister of Baden-Würtemberg, Professor Hahn, who was MEP for Heidelberg at the time. It was way ahead of its time, even if some of the proposals made then have long since been overtaken by events. But in the intervening years, this House has lobbied consistency for European television, through to the telecommunications directive and the Television Without Frontiers directive. What were the two core elements? First, we have stated quite clearly that we want to prevent this necessary, proper and important technology from being abused, by setting unequivocal ethical standards. And secondly, we have constantly reiterated that this is a question of competition, and not just competition within Europe, but the competitiveness of Europe per se. Today we can see that this European market stands in increasing danger from non-European suppliers and non-European monopolies. I therefore take the view that we really do have to go the way proposed today, namely the way of voluntary convergence and harmonisation, but that this should not be used as an excuse for doing nothing. I therefore emphatically support what Mrs Hieronymi has said. We really do need a deadline. We know from the Member States – of which there are presently fifteen but of which there will soon be twenty-five or thirty – that they are not exactly quick off the mark when it comes to action plans. Having come down in favour of voluntary action, we really should set this deadline for the Member States by the end of this year, as far as submitting action plans is concerned. Otherwise we will have to come up at the beginning of next year with ways of speeding up the process. I share the view expressed by Mrs Echerer, that hopefully there will be no need for the Commission to step in with binding proposals and standards, but I fear it may come to that. I should therefore like to again urge the Member States to submit their action plans by the end of the year. We need to make it quite clear that we are as concerned about the competitiveness of Europe per se as we are about cultural diversity in Europe, the cultural diversity that makes Europe what it is and – and this too is an important point in this resolution – the potential of small and medium-sized enterprises. And the challenge here is for small and medium-sized enterprises. We in the European Parliament see ourselves as the champions of small and medium-sized enterprises, which are perhaps still shying away from a great deal in the dimension facing us. Commissioner, thank you for your clear and detailed reply, but may I say quite unequivocally that, if the Member States fail to submit their action plans by the end of the year, we shall have to meet again in January in order to discuss how the European Union is to proceed. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE