Search results : 31

On 2 March 2010, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) made public its latest reports on Albania, Austria, Estonia and the United Kingdom, adopted in the fourth round of its monitoring of the laws, policies and practices to combat racism in the Member States of the Council of Europe (for commentary on earlier reports, see IRIS 2009-10: 0/109, IRIS 2009-8: 5, IRIS 2009-5: 4, IRIS 2008-4: 6, IRIS 2006-6: 4 and IRIS 2005-7: 3). A number of key recommendations dealing with the (audiovisual) media and/or the Internet can be distilled from relevant sections of these reports. The...

On 8 October 2009, the European Commission decided to close infringement procedures initiated against Italy and Estonia for breaches of the EU’s advertising rules, as set out in the old Television without Frontiers (TwF) Directive. In regard to Italy, the Commission’s concerns focused on three fronts: (1) Teleshopping messages too short to enable their identification as such by viewers were being broadcast by Italian television channels, while also not being counted towards the twelve-minute hourly advertising limit; (2) Television stations' self-promotional spots were not included within Italy’s...

On 18 June, the Parliament of the Republic of Estonia approved the amendment to the Broadcasting Law, which entered into force on 1 July 2008. One of the most important provisions of the amendment is the establishment of 1 June 2010 as the date when the analogue television network will shut down. The other important points are linked to the broadcast licenses of private channels. The central provisions of the Act to amend the Broadcasting Law are connected to creating more advantageous conditions during the switch-over from analogue terrestrial broadcasting to digital broadcasting for the private...

With its decision of 13 February 2008, the European Commission approved the state programme for the promotion of audiovisual culture (for example, film productions in Estonian and the dissemination of Estonian films outside Estonia). The legal bases for the provision of national film support are, inter alia, the Draft Regulations for Allocation of Support from the Estonian Film Foundation and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia Act. The support is due to run until the end of 2013 and have a total budget of EEK 540 million (EUR 34.5 million). The Commission considers this arrangement for the provision...

In the course of 2006, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers (CM) adopted a number of country-specific Resolutions in the context of the Second Monitoring Cycle of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM). The Resolutions focus on the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia and contain a number of provisions concerning the (audiovisual) media (for similar provisions in earlier country-specific Resolutions, see IRIS 2006-2: 4). In respect of the Czech Republic, the CM recommends, inter alia, that the authorities take “additional...