Europees Parlement klaar om eigen webtelevisie kanaal te lanceren (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Despite centre-right resistance, the European Parliament on Tuesday (11 July) approved a €1 million pilot project for a fully-fledged own web-based TV channel.

A majority of MEPs in the budget committee approved the scheme which according to a parliament report "matches changing social patterns, with many Europeans, particularly the young, looking increasingly to the internet for news and information."

Parliament hopes to launch its webstreamed TV station in the second half of 2007 if the internal pilot project proves successful, with work on the project due to start in September.

The channel will not only air the parliament's plenary and committee meetings - with plenary sessions already being webcasted at the moment - but is also expected to offer interviews, news summaries and reports.

Costs are expected to jump to €7-9 million per year in the 2007-2009 period, but Dutch liberal MEP Jan Mulder said this is still "much cheaper" than a conventional TV station by the parliament, which was also considered as an option.

Mr Mulder told EUobserver the channel could help the parliament get across its message more effectively. "There is a lot of rethoric on EU policies such as the common agricultural policy which is often portayed as 'devlish'."

"A web TV station would give MEPs the opportunity to present things in their context," he explained.

Who will watch us?

During the preparations for the scheme, some MEPs had expressed concern that the channel would be too political.

"There has been some debate on the balance to be achieved between editorial independence and adequate political oversight over the production of the channel," a budget committee report said.

But the parliament agreed to soothe these fears by setting up a panel of the body's president and vice presidents of different political backgrounds to play a watchdog role over the TV station.

In the beginning of this year, the European Commission stirred journalists' anger over an idea by the commission for an own press agency, which later was withdrawn.

In Tuesday's budget committee meeting, socialist, green and liberal MEPs voted for the web TV project while centre-right EPP-ED deputies rejected the scheme.

Latvian centre-right MEP Valdis Dombrowskis said "I have asked people during the last month: how many hours have you watched web TV? Almost nobody watched. The question then is: who will watch us?"

"I am not convinced this justifies the costs," he added.

But UK Labour MEP Neena Gill slammed the centre-right's attempts to torpedo the plan, saying their attitude was one of "as soon as there is an innovative idea, let's slam it down."

She said that the parliament should move away from issueing "brochures" which nobody reads.

The parliament's initiative comes after as the EU council, member states' decision-making body, on Tuesday webstreamed its first meeting of EU finance ministers.