Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when I took on the task of being the rapporteur for this report, I was extremely well aware of the fact that it would not be an easy one. That is why I have applied a large number of tests that, in my opinion, should be applied in such a difficult situation. For example, at the beginning of this year we organised a hearing at which many experts spoke and gave their views on freedom of expression and protecting pluralism. In addition, the European Institute for the Media in Düsseldorf, a highly renowned institute, has been asked to carry out an investigation in all the countries in Europe. In my opinion, an investigation that should, in fact, have been carried out by the Commission long ago. This research will soon be available to the Commission. I have spoken to a very great number of experts and all of them, whether they represented journalists, public media or commercial media, expressed their appreciation for my recommendations. I have also drawn up a series of recommendations to promote pluralism in Europe. One of these recommendations concerns the defining of minimum conditions throughout the European Union to make sure that public broadcasters are independent and free from interference by government, as recommended by the Council of Europe. Other recommendations relate to rules on transparency and ownership of the media, especially ownership across borders, and the publishing of information about substantial interests in media. I am also requesting research into the need to include a pluralism test in the concentration regulation and the lowering of thresholds with respect to media concentrations, and also into the need to include regulations on these matters in the national rules. I am not going to sum up all my recommendations here. I only know that very many people in Europe are waiting for an update to the Green Paper from the Commission and for proposals to interpret more clearly its role with respect to freedom of expression. It is extremely important in a democracy that pluralism be respected. Based on all the talks I have had and also based on the report of the Institute for the Media, I have expressed a number of concerns and one of these concerns did indeed relate to Italy. After all, this was in the terms of reference for this report and I did not make up these terms of reference myself, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. This assignment with this title was given to me by the Conference of Presidents. It was my duty, therefore, based on an application and based on the request of the Conference of Presidents, to pay particular attention to Italy. Many of my colleagues reinforced the attention that I had given to Italy myself even further. Are matters raised in this report which should not have been? Mr President, I do not think so. Facts are presented, based on which we say to the Commission: do you not have a moral duty to develop policy on pluralism in the media? I think that the Commission does have this duty. I also noted from the advice I have taken that, when it comes to pluralism, we need to set higher standards for public media than commercial media. As rapporteur, I am very well aware that the market does its job and in general I have no objection to that. The question it comes down to is whether pluralism is under threat from concentrations or any other threat, because certain media are over-concentrated in one hand. That is not new, Commissioner. We do this in all kinds of policy areas. It is one of our tasks as an internal market to watch that over-large concentrations do not develop. All I am asking is that freedom of expression be guaranteed, in the interests of a sound democracy. I think it is a great pity that some members, who have not been involved in the debate from the outset, have now suddenly submitted large numbers of amendments to bring this report down. I do not think this report deserves that, I did not expect it and I also think it is undemocratic.

Political group: ELDR