A4-0227/97

Resolution on the Commission Green Paper on the protection of minors and human dignity in audiovisual and information services (COM(96)0483 - C4-0621/96)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the Commission Green Paper COM(96)0483 - C4-0621/96,

- having regard to its resolution of 12 December 1996 on measures to protect minors in the European Union ((OJ C 20, 20.1.1997, p. 170.)),

- having regard to its resolution of 13 March 1997 on the information society, culture and education ((OJ C 115, 14.4.1997, p. 151.)),

- having regard to its resolution of 24 April 1997 on the Commission communication on illegal and harmful content on the Internet ((OJ C 150, 19.5.1997, p. 38.)),

- having regard to European Parliament and Council Directive 97/36/EC of 30 June 1997 amending Council Directive 89/552/EEC on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States concerning the pursuit of television broadcasting activities ((OJ L 202, 30.7.1997, p. 60.)),

- having regard to the report of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs (A4-0227/97),

A. whereas the European Union is an area in which goods, services and capital enjoy freedom of movement and in which the free movement of persons is to be ensured in accordance with Article 7a of the EC Treaty, without further conditions being imposed,

B. whereas Articles F and K.2. of the Treaty on European Union explicitly refer to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which provides, inter alia, for freedom of expression and the right to privacy,

C. whereas the Treaty on European Union provides for a procedure for cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs which may apply to certain aspects of the protection of minors and human dignity in the new electronic services,

D. pointing out that the protection of minors and human dignity is an objective of public interest which remains a fundamental issue in connection with media regulation, so that minors should be protected as soon as possible against access, via the new networks and services, to material which may harm their physical and psychological development,

E. whereas all new services must be brought within the rule of law and the requirements of the state or states in which they are offered,

F. whereas the spectrum from television to the Internet still retains some common features, namely the provision of information and entertainment electronically into the home and, secondly, the use of the public asset, the airwaves, to do so,

G. whereas the types of rules involved will need to vary according to the practicability of screening systems and their general, voluntary application by the industry,

H. whereas it is crucial to distinguish clearly between illegal content violating human dignity and legal content which might harm the physical, psychological and moral development of minors; whereas these two issues must be dealt with separately in ways appropriate to their specific nature,

1. Emphasizes that the European Union is well placed to draw up a comparative study of how each Member State identifies and regulates new communication services, especially those which go beyond the accepted definitions of broadcasting, so as to identify and promote a coherent European approach avoiding distortions between different media providing the same programme content;

2. Deplores the fact that, in addition to having beneficial effects, audiovisual and information services can carry material which offends against human dignity, impairs the development of children and young people and encourages criminal behaviour;

3. Stresses that everyone has the right freely to receive or broadcast information by any medium, except information which breaks the law, infringes personal dignity or privacy or may impair the development of minors;

4. Urges Member States which have not yet ratified international texts on the protection of minors to accede to the relevant conventions;

5. Notes that all the Member States, in their national rules, have legal instruments designed to outlaw certain types of content, for example content which undermines human dignity and the protection of minors, but that these national solutions do not provide an adequate response to the legal problems raised by globalization and the trans-frontier nature of these forms of communication;

6. Emphasizes the fundamental nature of cooperation among the Member States in the context of cooperation in the sphere of justice and home affairs, and calls on the Member States to cooperate, exchange information and encourage trans-frontier investigations, searches and seizures in order to facilitate measures to combat breaches of the rules on content which is illegal and/or harmful to minors;

7. Stresses that measures to protect minors and human dignity in connection with the new services can be effective only if they are coordinated at global level, and calls on the Commission and the governments of the Member States to seek to bring about such international coordination at the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G7 and/or the OECD and in bilateral talks with the USA and Japan;

8. Calls on the Member States to maximize the use of the European Union framework in the field of justice and home affairs in order to identify a basis of European common values and rules concerning content which may undermine human dignity and to develop the requisite cooperation among judicial and police authorities in the identification, prosecution and punishment of all illegal behaviour;

9. Regards it as essential that, taking a cue from the political agreement reached in Dublin on 26 and 27 September 1996 to combat paedophilia and trafficking in women, a similar mandate be issued to the Commission to define minimum legal standards regarding illegal content enabling joint principles which can be defended in international fora to be laid down in the European Union;

10. Calls on the European Union to establish a coherent and appropriate framework defining in particular the principles to be applied and the objectives to be achieved in terms of the protection of minors and human dignity for each level of provider; in this connection, the principle to be applied is that the objectives of protecting minors and human dignity should be achieved by means of minimum legal requirements for content providers, self-regulatory measures and incentives towards responsible decision-making on the consumer side;

11. Calls on the Member States to lay down by 31 December 1998, by means of the most effective legal procedure, a legislative framework setting out minimum standards on illegal content in audiovisual and information media; calls on the Council to keep Parliament informed, consult it and duly take its views into consideration pursuant to Article K.6 and in the light of Article K.1(7) of the TEU, since, in view of the fact that the subject matter is new and given its future significance, such standards indubitably constitute a 'principal aspect';

12. Calls on the Member States, acting in constant liaison with Europol, to cooperate at administrative level on the basis of joint guidelines with a view to combating illegal content more quickly and effectively; regards it as essential, to that end, that police bodies be given training in the new technologies and constant briefings on the latest developments in those sectors;

13. Calls on the Member States to set up this administrative cooperation on the basis of democratically established rules;

14. Calls for content and access providers to be required to comply with the following minimum legal standards:

- as regards content they themselves have provided, they should assume full liability, including criminal liability;

- as regards illegal content included in outside content made available by them, they should assume liability if they are definitely aware of the nature of the content and if it is technically feasible and reasonable for them to prevent its use;

- as regards decisions on legal content which may possibly undermine the protection of minors and human dignity, the content and access providers must lay down standards open to public scrutiny and bodies to provide voluntary self-regulation;

15. Stresses that codes of conduct drawn up with the relevant industries in accordance with the European framework defined above will need to have a wide definition of harmful content to protect effectively minors and other groups at risk;

16. Stresses the crucial role of the individual and the family in exercising their responsibilities and critical faculties, which can only be complemented by the intervention of the public authorities;

17. Recommends that filtering and screening devices should be extensively tested with the active participation of the European Union to establish their effectiveness, accessibility and cost; emphasizes, with regard to broadcasting, that Directive 97/36/EC referred to above should be used as the basis for action taken on the lines set out above;

18. Requests that, with regard to closed on-line services, the Commission should review the extent to which each is open to forms of supervision which take into account the nature of the activity involved;

19. Calls on the European Union to recommend appropriate measures to develop exchanges of information and good practice among Member States and interested parties in order to identify and promote effective means of increasing user awareness of how personal choice through home screening can operate, and of the research information available about the behavioural consequences, for an impressionable and immature audience, of some of the services now on offer;

20. Emphasizes that thinking on the protection of minors in connection with audiovisual and information services should also cover advertising;

21. Urges the governments of the Member States to include in their school syllabuses teaching which will develop the ability of minors to subject audiovisual messages to critical analysis;

22. Calls on the Commission to encourage at European level measures to increase adults' media awareness and involve them in media education;

23. Calls for the implementation of a European campaign and an information and awareness action programme, to be funded by the EU budget, to inform parents and all people dealing with children (teachers, social workers, etc.) on the best way (including technical aspects) to protect minors against exposure to content that could be harmful to their development, so as to ensure their well-being; points out that the Commission's role in this respect should be restricted to the funding of pilot projects, coordination and encouraging exchanges of information between the relevant actors at national level;

24. Recommends public authorities and other interested parties, both at European and national level, to give consumer and cultural organizations and associations of service users a substantial role in defining and monitoring codes of conduct and in providing information to the public;

25. Emphasizes that, in view of the degree of technical convergence among forms of electronic communication, a broad discussion is required with a view to determining, on the basis of the specific nature of the services offered, the most suitable legal framework in each case with the appropriate combination of legal requirements, self-regulation by providers and consumer responsibility; as regards harmful and illegal content, the experience and the level of protection achieved in the broadcasting sector should be regarded as a yardstick in this respect;

26. Calls on the European Union to promote in appropriate fora an ethical dimension, based on common European values, to the international debate on the new audiovisual and information services;

27. Welcomes the system of pictograms adopted by certain national channels as a means of indicating the level of violence shown in the programme being broadcast, and trusts that in the absence of a more sophisticated (V-chip-type) filtering system, Member States will use the system in question;

28. Calls on the Commission to carry out a study into the effectiveness of the various existing systems for classifying the content of programmes;

29. Points out to Member States that whereas commercial viability will be the necessary test of survival for most of the new services, they should be mindful of the collective cultural and behavioural consequences of what they provide;

30. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.