How Deregulatory Has the European Union Really Been in the Audiovisual Sector?, Singapore, 60th Annual Conference of the International Communications Association (ICA)

The paper focuses on four areas of European Union (EU) activity: single market regulation, media ownership regulation, competition law and regulation, and cultural protection. It adopts the analytical framework proposed by Fritz Scharpf, according to which the EU is deemed to have a deregulatory bias that flows from the Union’s structural asymmetry that makes neo-liberal market-making ‘negative integration’ easier to achieve than market-correcting ‘positive integration’. The paper finds confirmation of an EU bias towards negative integration in its single market policies for television and latterly new audiovisual media services. The EU’s failed media pluralism initiative confirms the difficulty of achieving positive integration. However, the paper concludes that the European Commission has acted with restraint in applying its competition powers to public service broadcasting, though it compels the latter to make a serious effort to legitimize their new media activities. Regarding cultural protection, the EU has served as a shield against external pressures.