Future EU financing of the radio network Euranet Plus (debate)
Speaker: Sabine VERHEYEN (Germany, Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) / Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands)
Date: 2021-06-10

  Sabine Verheyen, author. – Madam President, for almost 15 years now Euranet Plus, as a pan-European independent network of local and regional radio stations with a public service mission, has successfully bridged the information gap between the EU and its citizens by strengthening understanding of, and promoting debate on, all fields of EU policy-making. Combining production and broadcasting capacities with editorial services for its member radios and its own agency, which plans co-productions, promotes exchanges and produces truly pan-European tailor-made and on-demand formats for its members, Euranet Plus represents a unique gateway to EU affairs for more than 15 million listeners on a daily basis who may otherwise not engage with EU-related issues. 
I’m deeply dismayed that, in complete disregard for the clear political will of the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT), the Commission adopted a decision on the financing of multimedia actions and the work programme for 2021, which discontinues the current agreement with Euranet Plus already this year without any transitional measures and replaces it by an annual competitive procedure with a very limited duration. 
To be very clear: this decision means that the radio network will have to close down by the end of the year. Furthermore, this decision was taken without any prior strategic dialogue with the organisation concerned. Surely, this trusted partner deserves a fairer, more gracious treatment after more than a decade of EU funding, successful cooperation and skilfully forged specialised action. 
After a thorough consideration of the matter by the CULT Committee, it is now very clear that a funding model based on annual open calls with a limited duration without any transition period for the current grant beneficiary makes it impossible for Euranet Plus to draw up a long-term development plan and for making the digital shift and investing in further improvements of its products and services, leaving them without any stability or predictability, while forcing them to invest a lot of already scarce resources in the preparation of these annual calls. 
If the Commission continues to insist on this course of action, this will lead to the prompt liquidation of Euranet Plus and the redundancy of its staff in early 2022. I am particularly astonished that, even though we communicated our position to the Commission several times in several hearings with the DG and the Commissioner on the further allocation of money under the multimedia actions, our position – which is widely shared within the committee and is important in terms of media policy – has been ignored by the Commission by referring to a single audit, and this audit itself shows considerable deficiencies in its basic assumptions and thus also in its implementation and results. In no case can we accept that parliamentary majority decisions are now superseded by a single audit. 
The only acceptable way forward is for the Euranet Plus to be offered a transitional ground agreement for at least two years, followed by a competition process on a multiannual basis. This will ensure the most added value in terms of sustainability, efficiency and sound use of EU public funds as opposed to short-term procedures that not only force beneficiaries to a hand-to-mouth existence but are also administratively more costly. 
During this transitional period, Euranet Plus should be encouraged to submit a long-term strategic plan that aims to develop the network further by the end of 2027 in terms of extending its membership, geographic and linguistic coverage, and preparing for a digital shift. This two-year transition should equip the organisation to be well positioned for the competitive process that could then start in 2024. 
On behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, I ask you to support the resolution, asking the Commission to urgently revise its decision of 18 March 2021. We cannot fight against disinformation and demand more media pluralism, on the one hand, and at the same time deprive the only radio network that produces news in a cross-border cooperation from a transnational pan-European perspective of a fairly secured financial basis. I call on your support.