European Congress on Media Pluralism

On May 13, 2011 was held in the auditorium Enzo Biagi in Bologna the European Congress on Media Pluralism, the third meeting of the European Initiative for Media Pluralism.

The conference, which was attended by members of the working groups- established during the previous conference held at the European Parliament in Brussels March 31, 2011- began with an overview of the pathologies of the media systems of some European Union countries: Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria , France, UK and Italy. The analysis revealed  a common virus-despite different  spreading degrees according to the situation of each Country-  of political interference in the public service, and the media in general; conflicts of interest between business and editorial activities; or control of media; media concentrations; little independence of newsrooms from the property; devaluation of the journalistic profession.

To sum up: an European problem that need a European solution.

The objectives that the project aims to achieve are:

1 – Invite the European Commission to carry out its strategy for the defense of media pluralism in the EU, defined as “three-step approach”, which provides for monitoring on the risk of lack of pluralism in all EU Member States . To do this, it is important to stress the need for an alliance between the European Parliament, civil society and media.

2 – Formalize the launch of the European Initiative for Media Pluralism representing all the citizens.

Next steps:

– Accession to the European Initiative for Media Pluralism through the formal signing of a letter of intent that will come by the end of May 2011.

– Creation of a website for structuring the initiative content and starting to give visibility.

– Raising funds to create a permanent secretariat to coordinate the activities of the Initiative.