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Early in 1995, TF1 successfully applied to the Tribunal de Commerce (the Commercial Court) in Brussels for an interim order recognising its right to remain on the Flemish Community's cable networks, which had threatened to remove it unless it agreed to pay the copyright fees due on retransmission itself. Previously, these had been covered from the overall sum paid by subscribers under the general "cable contract". The appeal against this order is still pending, but the Tribunal de Commerce confirmed it in a judgment on the merits given on 12 January 1996, in which it forbade the cable networks...

In the VT4-case, the State Council has formulated a request for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Communities (Art. 177 EC Treaty). As we indicated earlier, the State Council on 2 March 1995 suspended a Ministerial Order of the Flemish Minister of Cultural Affairs stopping the Flemish cable networks from distributing the television programmes of VT4, a commercial TV broadcaster licensed by the United Kingdom. The denial of access was considered by the State Council to be a breach of European Community law, especially of Art. 2 of the TV Directive and Art. 59 EC Treaty...

On 26 October 1995, the Minister of the Flemish Community of Belgium responsible for media policies sent a statement to the Flemish Council containing his media policy priorities for the period 1995-1999. The statement mentions an agreement between the Flemish Government and the written press in which the Government agrees to make available on an annual basis BEF 250million in the form of the buying of advertising space, direct aid to newspapers, subsidies to the Press Foundation and investment support. Furthermore, measures will be taken to strengthen Flemish identity, to ensure that the media...

On 13 June 1995, the public broadcaster of the Flemish Community in Belgium, BRTN, presented its plans for the coming years to the Flemish Council. The BRTN-Decree of 27 March 1991 obliges BRTN to ask for the approval of its activities from the Flemish Council. The present document is the fifth in a row and covers the period until the year 2000. BRTN highlights its programme policy and asks the Flemish Council to allow more flexibility and less hierarchic structures so as to enable it to adapt quickly to new technological developments.

During the last general elections, several courts were called upon to make rulings as to the conditions of access of the campaigning parties to electoral broadcasts on state-owned radio and television channels. The RTBF board of governors had laid down a regulation restricting access to those parties with seats in all the Assemblies concerned by the elections of 21 May (Senate, the Lower House, the Regional Parliaments), in the avowed aim of blocking access to the extreme right-wing parties. This system, which favoured the established parties, was of course criticised by the smaller parties that...