CoE Committee of Ministers will not resume work on the revision of the European Convention on Transfrontier Television

On 23 September 2014, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe informed that “(it) has not allocated any resources to work on the European Convention on Transfrontier Television over the last three years and sees no reason to review its position for the time being” (Reply to the Recommendation 2036 (2014)).

In the beginning of 2011 the Committee of Ministers decided to discontinue work on transfrontier television following the termination of the negotiations of the Convention. This was a consequence of the European Union position stating that they have an exclusive competence for the issues covered by the draft revised Convention and that EU member States are not allowed to become party to the Convention on their own.

In its Recommendation 2036 (2014) from 31 January 2014 the Parliamentary Assembly had recommended the Committee of Ministers to resume work on the revision of the ECTT and negotiations with the European Union on this matter.

In its reply the Committee of Ministers notes that:

“one of the main achievements of the Convention was to set binding legal standards in relations between European Union member States and non-European Union member States which are parties to the convention. It considers the discontinuation of the revision of the convention as a serious step back from this perspective, but sees no possibility to continue this work at the present stage, since it has been informed by the European Union delegation that most issues covered by the convention fall under the exclusive external competence of the European Union and that the European Union does not have any intention to become party to the convention.”

• Committee of Ministers Reply to the Recommendation 2036 (2014)
• Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 2036 (2014) on Revision of the European Convention on Transfrontier Television

Source: Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe