Parsing Diplomatic Speech

Michael Hedges August 23, 2009 Follow on Twitter

Language in Brussels is delicate. Even with translations into each European tongue details are precise and precisely spoken. Misunderstandings are to be avoided; sensitivity above all.

Quickly, then, came the clarification from a DG Competition spokesperson. The new French rules for financing its public television are not being investigated, as the French news magazine Le Point surmised (August 19). It’s a constructive exchange. 

“It is not correct to say that we have launched an investigation,” said the DG Competition statement sent to various French media (August 20). “At the moment, the Commission continues constructive exchanges with France and reviews a number of details of the scheme before taking a position.”

That “constructive exchange” between the French government and the office of EC Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes has been underway for some months.  From the moment French President Nicolas Sarkozy revealed his plans in 2008 to consolidate French public television and replace the license fee plus advertising funding model with license fee plus direct State funding raised through a new tax on private broadcasters, mobile telecoms and internet service providers (ISPs) DG Competition staffers raised their eyebrows. They also held their noses as an initial tranche of State aid to France Télévisions was paid. (See more on French public television here)

In the language of Brussels, “investigation” coupled with “Commissioner Kroes” and “State aid to public broadcasting” has one meaning. There will be pain. Ask the German government, which last year had to revise its State Treaty on Public Broadcasting on Commissioner Kroes’ timetable. Once the lawyers at DG Competition launch an “investigation,” they have already all the answers they need.

The “constructive exchanges” between the French government and DG Competition will, says the EC, continue for another four months. During that time, Commissioner Kroes will leave DG Competition. Several national governments have targeted DG Competition for a new commissioner with a much softer touch. The French government could simply wait out the arrival of a new commissioner, hoping for winks and nods. Persistent rumblings in Brussels, however, suggest DG Info Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding -  who will remain with the European executive – will pick up the State aid to public broadcasting file.

DG Competition lawyers want to be convinced that funding the France Télévisions channels with a tax on telecoms and ISPs doesn’t distort competition. Screaming and yelling by French telecoms and ISPs over the tax have not moved M Sarkozy’s government. Neither has screaming and yelling from French commercial television channels, which fear the €450 million State aid package will be spent in bidding wars for sports rights. A formal EC investigation will give a new – and reasonably neutral – venue to all sides.

See also in ftm Knowledge

Media in France

French audiences are moving fast to every new platform. Some media outlets are leaping ahead, sometimes winning and sometimes not. Media life in France... and a few secrets. 75 pages PDF (April 2008)
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