MEPs back campaign to limit foreign TV

KATHERINE BUTLER

Strasbourg

The European Parliament yesterday threw its weight behind France's long- running campaign to stem the encroachment of Hollywood on to Europe's television screens.

The Strasbourg assembly voted for a revision of legislation to force television channels to devote a minimum of 51 per cent of air time to European-produced programmes. MEPs also voted overwhelmingly for limits on the exposure of children to gratuitous violence on television. New television sets would include a device or "V chip" allowing parents to jam "adult" material.

National broadcasting authorities would agree a television programme classification system, similar to that which already exists for cinema, to allow viewers to decide in advance which programmes it is safe to let children watch.

The Strasbourg vote sets the scene for an acrimonious battle between the parliament and EU governments, particularly Britain and Germany, which agreed last year that quotas would only have to be applied "where practicable".

The French say this escape clause leaves the floodgates open to the horrors of cheap imports like Neighbours, to the detriment of Europe's unique cultural identity. The EU Council of Ministers, which represents member state governments, is virtually certain to reinstate the let-out clause when the quota legislation returns to them for a second reading. But the power of co-decision, given to the parliament under the Maastricht treaty, means it can block the legislation and a lengthy stand-off is now inevitable.

Under the changes to the current "television without frontiers" legislation approved by MEPs, the 51 per cent quota would become legally enforceable. TV channels would furthermore be banned from filling quotas with locally produced talk or game shows or other "studio-based" programming.

That provision is aimed at increasing the television outlets for European- produced films and documentaries. But, according to critics, it could lead to a situation where topless darts would be considered European material for the purposes of meeting quota requirements.

Approval for the revisions came in spite of opposition from the broadcasting, recording, advertising, publishing and technology industries worried that tougher quotas could hamper new on-line multi-media services.