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IssuesJoint European Media Industry and Journalists Position on the Commission’s Directive on the implementation of Article 6§5 of the Directive on market manipulationLetter to Commissioner Frits Bolkestein) - January 2004
Commissioner Frits Bolkestein Brussels, 20 January 2004
Dear Commissioner Bolkestein, The undersigned media and journalists’ organisations are writing to express their strong concerns about the Commission’s Directive implementing Art. 6§5 of the Market Abuse Directive (MADID) and the detrimental impact that these implementing measures will have on financial journalism. We welcome the assurance that you made to the European Parliament in October 2002. This statement provided a clear orientation as to the purpose of the Market Abuse Directive (MAD) and its application to the media and journalists and on how it should be respected in the implementing measures. However, during the consultation organised by your services, we observed that the proposed measures for the implementation of Art. 6§5 were permitted to extend well beyond the objectives of the Market Abuse Directive and your assurance, amounting to a serious threat to press freedom as guaranteed in Art. 10 of the European Convention for Human Rights and in Art. 11 of the Charter for Fundamental Rights. Legal advice commissioned by EPC, and already copied to Mr. Schaub, has been elaborated by a lawyer specialising in European media and constitutional law. As you will see, he has confirmed that MADID, as it relates to financial journalism, breaches Articles 5 and 151EC, as well as Art. 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. MADID also exceeds the competence provided by the sixth indent of Art. 6(10) and Article 17(2) of MAD as it modifies the essential provisions of the Directive and contains more than technical adaptations of MAD. This highlights that the problems are serious and must be resolved. In order to ensure that the implementing measures respect the limits mentioned above, ENPA, EPC, FAEP and other media organisations informed your services on many occasions about problems with the text and emphasized the need for amending the draft measures. We are dismayed that the final version of the implementing measures has not respected fundamental principles relating to the media and your statement to the European Parliament. We would take the opportunity of repeating the comments made in the EPC’s letter to Mr. Alexander Schaub of 9th January:
We have therefore considered that it is necessary to bring this very serious issue to your attention once again. We would like to propose that the Commission examines some possible solutions in order to restore the position you outlined to the European Parliament and to prevent the MADID in its current text from creating a dangerous and unlawful precedent which engenders prejudicial consequences for the European media and journalists. European investors will also be prejudiced by measures that will impede the media from reporting on financial markets. The undersigned journalists and media organisations therefore call on you to consider, and give effect to this legal opinion and to the suggestions it makes on how the concerns of the media should be resolved (paragraphs 102 –104). They also support the letters from the EPC that you have previously received. We hope that you will examine carefully our request and the EPC legal advice, with its proposals for resolving these concerns. We would like to propose a meeting to discuss these issues with you as soon as possible. We are copying this letter to Commissioner Reding and the Director General Mr. Alexander Schaub. Yours sincerely,
The undersigned Editors, Media Associations, Journalists Unions, Self-regulatory body and Publishers:
Renate Schroeder, European Federation of Journalists (EFJ/IFJ) Hugh Carnegy, Deputy Managing Editor, The Financial Times
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