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The European Commission has asked the Belgian authorities to clarify the definition of the public obligations and the financing of Flemish-Belgian public service broadcaster VRT. The investigation into the financing of the public broadcaster was initiated following several complaints from commercial broadcasters in 2004. After looking into the complaints, the Commission issued its preliminary views concluding that the Belgian financing system is not in line with the EC Treaty rules on state aid. The EC Treaty’s article 87 prohibits subsidies liable to distort competition. Since the start of the...

On 10 February 2006, the new Flemish Regulator for the Media (FRM) was officially established. As an external autonomous agency, the FRM is responsible for licensing and supervising radio and television broadcasting organisations, cable networks and radio and television services in the Flemish Community. The FRM integrates the competences of the former Vlaams Commissariaat voor de Media (Flemish Media Authority), the former Vlaamse Geschillenraad voor Radio en Televisie (Flemish Council for Radio and Television Disputes) and the former Vlaamse Kijk- en Luisterraad (Flemish Listening and Viewing...

Since 1 January 2006, RTL-TVI, Club RTL and Plug TV have ceased to be television broadcasting services in the French-speaking Community. That, in any case, was the view held by the Belgian PLC TVI which, until then, was the editor of these services. On 3 October 2005 its board of directors decided to not request renewal of the authorisation that it had been granted by the Government of the French-speaking Community in 1996 for the RTL-TVI and Club RTL services, and which lapsed on 31 December 2005. At the end of December 2005, TVI also announced its renunciation of the authorisation issued in March...

After long parliamentary preparations and debate, the Belgian Copyright Act of 30 June 1994 has been modified in order to implement the EC Directive 2001/29 of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society. As the Directive 2001/29/EC should have been transposed into national law by the EC Member States before 22 December 2002, the European Commission had started the next step in the infringement procedure against Belgium for failing to comply with the 2004 rulings of the European Court of Justice (Case C-143/04, Commission v Belgium,...

The Flemish government has taken the initiative of reorganising the authorities currently licensing and/or supervising radio- and television broadcasting, cable networks and radio- and television services in the Flemish Community. The idea is to unite the existing authorities into one agency, the Vlaamse Regulator voor de Media (Flemish Regulator for the Media - FRM).The draft bill integrates the competences of the Vlaams Commissariaat voor de Media (Flemish Media Authority), the Vlaamse Geschillenraad voor Radio en Televisie (Flemish Council of Disputes for Radio and Television) and the Vlaamse...