The EU's MEDIA 2007 programme for the audiovisual industry participates at the 59th Berlinale (5-15 February) and supports the MEDIA umbrella stand for professionals, the Talent Campus and the European Coproduction Market.

The Commission's Directorate-General for Enlargement, in cooperation with the European Youth Press associationand Café Babel,launched today the 2009 European Young Journalist Award, a pan-European competition for young journalists. This year Europe celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the iron curtain and the 5th anniversary of the accession to the EU of eight Central and Eastern European Countries, as well as Malta and Cyprus. These anniversaries offer a special incentive for aspiring or professional journalists from all over Europe to reflect and express their views on the enlargement of the European Union.

The European Commission has today adopted a Communication extending the validity of the state aid assessment criteria for the production of films and audiovisual works until 31 December 2012. These criteria, laid down in a Commission Communication of 2001, are used by the Commission to approve Europe’s national, regional and local film support schemes under the EU's state aid rules. The new Commission Communication also identifies a number of trends which are likely to have to be addressed by a future Cinema Communication. Across the EU, around €1.6 bn is spent on national film support each year.

Today, the European Commission adopted a new MEDIA MUNDUS programme, a broad international cooperation programme for the audiovisual industry to strengthen cultural and commercial relations ...

The European Commission has approved under EC Treaty state aid rules a €104 million Italian tax incentive scheme for film production until 31 December 2010. The Commission found that the scheme was compatible with the cultural derogation of the EC Treaty, in line with the Cinema Communication rules concerning aid to film production

- joint press statement

One year after the entry into force of a new EU Directive meant to liberalise TV rules and remove outdated and bureaucratic restrictions on the provision of digital TV over the internet, video on demand and mobile TV in Europe, EU Member States have made little progress in adapting national rules.

The European Commission has approved under EC Treaty state aid rules a €212 million German film support scheme until 31 December 2013. The scheme covers measures such as script writing, film production, distribution and exhibition. The Commission found that the scheme is compatible with the cultural and sectoral derogations of the EC Treaty (Article 87.3.d and Article 87.3.c), in line with the Cinema Communication rules concerning aid to film production (see IP/01/1326). In particular, the aid to cinemas has been approved on economic and social grounds, particularly for smaller cinemas.

The European Commission has today taken a decisive step towards the promotion of competitive Mobile TV services in the EU. It has published a set of guidelines for the authorisation of Mobile TV to accelerate roll-out of the service across Europe. Mobile TV revenues worldwide are expected to reach more than €7.8 billion in 2013. The commercial services launched before summer 2008 in some European countries show that there is an increasing consumer demand: in the Netherlands alone, 10 000 users had already subscribed to the service at the beginning of autumn. Authorisations from Member States for Mobile TV services are needed before any commercial launches by operators. Along with the addition of the DVB-H standard to the EU list of official standards in March 2008 (IP/08/451), these guidelines underline the Commission's strong commitment to the promotion of new services for European consumers.

The EU will have a new Safer Internet Programme as of 1 January 2009. Following the overwhelmingly positive vote on 23 October in which the European Parliament expressed its support for the new Safer Internet Programme (IP/08/1571), the Council of Ministers has adopted today the new Programme. The new Safer Internet Programme covering the period 2009-2013 had been proposed by the European Commission on 28 February 2008 (IP/08/310) to protect children in the ever more sophisticated online world and empower them to safely use web services like social networking, blogging and instant messaging. While 75% of children (aged between 6 and 17 years) are already online and 50% of 10-year-olds have a mobile phone, a new Eurobarometer survey published today shows that 60% of European parents are worried that their child might become a victim of online grooming (when an adult befriends a child with the intention of committing sexual abuse) and 54% that their children could be bullied online (harassed on internet sites or via mobile messages). The new Safer Internet Programme will fight grooming and bullying by making online software and mobile technologies more sophisticated and secure. From 2009-2013, the EU will spend € 55 million to make the Internet a safer place.

Promoting the alignment with European standards on media legislation is one of the main priorities of the European Commission in supporting the convergence of the Western Balkan countries and Turkey with the European Union. The European Commission therefore invited media stakeholders of the Western Balkans countries and Turkey to a seminar on this topic, which took place in Istanbul on 1 and 2 December.

The European Commission today decided to bring Spain before the European Court of Justice for failing to comply with the rules on advertising in the EU's "Television without Frontiers" Directive. This is the final stage of an infringement procedure started in July 2007 (IP/07/1062). The main publicly funded and the commercial TV channels in Spain regularly fail to limit advertising and teleshopping spots to 12 minutes per hour, often by several minutes. While recognising the need to finance commercial programmes with advertising, the "12-minute-rule" was set up by the EU so that viewers would be protected from excessive spot-advertising on TV. The European Parliament and the Council of Ministers confirmed the "12-minute-rule" during the recent modernisation of the Directive (IP/07/1809).

The European Commission has approved under EC Treaty state aid rules a €116 million Finnish film support scheme until 31 December 2013. The scheme covers all of Finland's film support measures including film development, production, distribution and exhibition, particularly in rural Finland. The Commission found that the scheme is compatible with the cultural and sectoral derogations of the EC Treaty, in line with the Cinema Communication rules concerning aid to film production, In particular, the aid to cinemas has been approved on economic and social grounds, particularly in small, remote communities.

On the first day of its launch, Europe's digital library Europeana was overwhelmed by the interest shown by millions of users in this new project. On the basis of expert advice, Europeana had anticipated up to 5 million hits per hour on the site. The real interest was 3 times as strong. This massive interest slowed down the service so much that after having already doubled server capacity yesterday at noon, the Europeana management in The Hague (Netherlands) and the European Commission last night had to temporarily take down the site to take pressure off it. This is an unexpected difficulty, but it is also an encouraging sign that citizens in Europe and around the world have great interest in Europe's digital library. It also provides strong motivation for the Europeana team and the experts from the Commission working on the project to intensify their efforts and the site's technical back-up even further. Europeana must now be made more robust to deal with peak hour requests as they happened yesterday – thousands of users searching in the very same second for famous cultural works like the Mona Lisa or books from Kafka, Cervantes or James Joyce. The European Commission and the experts from the Europeana project are working on this day and night to make a fully functional Europeana service available as soon as possible. The Commission and the Europeana management are confident that Europeana will be up and running again by mid-December.For the time being, a demo version of Europeana will be available at http://dev.europeana.eu/ .

Europeana, Europe’s multimedia online library opens to the public today. At www.europeana.eu, Internet users around the world can now access more than two million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archival documents, paintings and films from national libraries and cultural institutions of the EU's 27 Member States. Europeana opens up new ways of exploring Europe’s heritage: anyone interested in literature, art, science, politics, history, architecture, music or cinema will have free and fast access to Europe's greatest collections and masterpieces in a single virtual library through a web portal available in all EU languages. But this is just the beginning. In 2010, Europeana will give access to millions of items representing Europe's rich cultural diversity and will have interactive zones such as communities for special interests. Between 2009 and 2011, some €2 million per year of EU funding will be dedicated to this. The Commission also plans to involve the private sector in the further expansion of Europe's digital library. In September 2007, the European Parliament supported, in a resolution voted by an overwhelming majority, the creation of a European digital library.
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Today, radio spectrum regulators from all 27 EU Member States and Commission experts met in Brussels in the framework of the Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) – an advisory group on radio spectrum set up by the Commission in 2002 – to discuss the spectrum policy priorities for 2009. After the meeting, Dániel Pataki, Head of the Hungarian Regulatory Authority, Chairman of the European Regulators Group and newly elected chairman of the RSPG, discussed his policy priorities with Commissioner Viviane Reding in a bilateral meeting, with a special focus on the strategic approach to the digital dividend and the "broadband for all" policy of the European Commission. On this basis, Dániel Pataki and Viviane Reding made the following joint statement:

The EURANET European Radio Network is launching its new multilingual, interactive "community on web" Internet platform. Mrs Margot WALLSTRÖM – Commission Vice-President and Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy – has welcomed the support which the Commission is to make available to the consortium over the next five years.

The seventh and last Brussels Debate in the framework of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008 was held on Wednesday evening and focused on the contribution of media to a diverse and open society in Europe. Traditional, as well as new media have a tremendous impact on how people interact with each other. This especially applies to the fight against intolerance and racism.

The European Commission has published, for public consultation, a draft Communication laying down the rules that it intends to apply to state funding of public service broadcasting. Member States and stakeholders now have the opportunity to submit their views on the proposed text. Comments should be submitted by 15 January 2009. Key issues for discussion include more flexibility for public broadcasters to meet the challenges of the new media environment, the principles underpinning the definition of the public service remit by the Member States as well as supervision of public service activities at national level. On the basis of the comments received, the Commission could adopt a modernised Broadcasting Communication in the first half of 2009. A first consultation on the general principles of the review took place between January and March 2008.

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on plans to extend the state aid assessment criteria of its Cinema Communication (see IP/01/1326) until 31 December 2012. Under the current criteria, state support for film production can be exempted from the EC Treaty's ban on state aid under certain conditions. In particular, such support must concern cultural films, while respecting certain thresholds regarding territorial requirements and aid intensity. Schemes must also comply with the EC Treaty rules and cannot focus on specific film-making activities. The Commission proposes to extend the validity of these criteria for three years and invites interested parties to submit their comments by 30 November 2008.