Germany

[DE] Agreement between the Federal Länder on Broadcasting now Available in Three Languages

IRIS 1995-8:1/39

Ad van Loon

European Audiovisual Observatory

In Germany, media policies are the prerogative of the sixteen federal states (the Länder ). They all have media laws of their own. To coordinate their policies in the field of broadcasting, they negotiated between them the Staatsvertrag über den Rundfunk im vereinten Deutschland (Agreement on Broadcasting between the Federal States in United Germany) which was adopted on 31 August 1991. A first set of amendments was agreed upon on 24 June 1994; they came into force on 1 August 1994. A second set of amendments is currently under preparation ( see : IRIS 1995-1: 9).

Article 1 of the Broadcasting Agreement dealing with broadcasting in general is now available at the European Audiovisual Observatory in the version which incorporates the amendments of 24 June 1994.

The other articles dealing respectively with the Association of German Public Service Broadcasting Organisations (ARD), the German Television Channel II (ZDF), licence fees, funding and interactive videotext are only available in the German language but will be made available in English and French at a later date.