Yellow card from the Bundesrat: the federal states reprimand the EU Commission’s media law

The Federal Council is taking on the EU Commission. He shares the goal of the Brussels project, which was criticized by a large majority in the state chamber on Friday. But he also risks being misunderstood.

What countries don’t like is the EU Media Freedom Act or European Media Freedom Act (Emfa). The draft was approved by the Commission in September. It is directed against state intervention in editorial offices and media companies, as is now the case in some EU countries.

This is particularly the case in Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been dictating and shutting down media companies to secure his power. The Polish government is also being viewed critically for this reason, and Romania is another country against which the Freedom of the Media Act is directed.

Brussels wants legal certainty

According to the EU Commission, the project aims to protect free media as a pillar of democracy, but also of the free market economy. According to Brussels, this includes a plural media landscape. Editorial decisions in media companies should therefore be better protected against interference, also in order to improve the quality of the content.

There should be more legal certainty for the media and better competitive conditions, also across borders, to ensure that foreign providers or investors continue to have access to the market. Source protection should be guaranteed, journalists should not be victims of spying. Other goals: transparent ownership structures, no media market concentration, protection of public media from being influenced. The Vice-President of the Commission, Věra Jourová, is in charge.

No one in the Bundesrat objects to the commission’s objectives. But the approach met with astonishment. Because from the point of view of the countries, the EU is interfering too much in the interests of the member states. Above all, a new body for media supervision meets with criticism.

“The Commission is not only raising itself to become a media legislator, but also wants to take over media supervision at the same time,” criticized the Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer (SPD), on Friday in the Bundesrat.

Dreyer emphasized that the “de facto centralization of media supervision at European level” is not permissible under German constitutional law due to the lack of distance from the state and is disproportionate under Union law. She spoke of an “authorization” of the EU by regulation. The well-functioning media regulation in most EU states could be damaged without the threat to media freedom being reversed in a few states.

Not everything can be justified by the completion of the internal market

Lucia Puttrich, Federal Council and Europe Minister of the State of Hesse

A purely economic approach related to the internal market does not do justice to the media and their content. According to Dreyer’s tenor, the media as part of culture is primarily a matter for the member states and not a matter for the internal market. From the point of view of the federal states, Brussels thus exceeds the limits of responsibility. “Not everything can be justified with the completion of the internal market,” says the Hessian Federal Council and Europe Minister Lucia Puttrich (CDU). She criticizes that, according to the regulation, the new EU control body often has to act “in agreement” with the Commission.

Yellow card from Berlin

The Federal Council therefore issued a “subsidiarity complaint” on Friday. Since 2007, national chambers of parliament have been able to use this instrument to show the EU Commission a yellow card if they believe that Brussels is assuming something that does not belong to the competence of the EU bodies. But it’s nothing more than a warning. Puttrich admits that the instrument has so far proven to be “weak to unsuitable”.

She therefore calls on the federal government to transfer the conduct of negotiations in the European Council to the federal states on this topic. The aim is then to persuade the Commission to move away from the strict regulation. Dreyer sees a “guideline that provides for a national design as the more suitable instrument”.

The fact that the Federal Council is playing into the hands of those who absolutely do not want more Brussels rules does not bother those responsible in the federal states. One cannot for tactical reasons refrain from stating one’s own opinion, said the new President of the Federal Council, the Mayor of Hamburg, Peter Tschentscher (SPD).

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