Harmony
by H. Grodsk
It’s old news now but still worth quoting:
Greece passed in January 2005 a ‘media transparency law’ that would have prevented 1% owners of media companies from participating in public sector contracts. In April 2005, the European Commission told Greece that the law violated EU law and threatened to freeze funds for Greek public works projects, leading eventually to Greece’s withdrawal of the law. [...] The story dramatically illustrates sensible, democratically needed legal reforms aimed at both preventing corruption of government and preserving the integrity of the media being sacrificed to supposed free trade principles.
(footnote 92, page 212 of C. Edwin Baker’s Media Concentration and Democracy, 2007.)
Baker is an American. Note: he writes the European Commission, not the parliament, which, according to Michael D. Higgins has tried to limit concentration of ownership: not very successfully, evidently, and yet we’re supposed to be interested in who gets elected to it.
Tags: C. Edwin Baker, greece, Media concentration and democracy, Michael D. Higgins
May 11th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Well, I feel obliged to reply, as this sounds like a challenge to my earlier comment. Baker must have seen what we somehow are overlooking - that the Parliament in fact has little to say since it’s the Commission that runs this enterprise. Still, one would hope that the MPs are of the sort which would at least not keep from us what goes on in Brussels/Strasbourg, so we’re not entirely shocked. I’ve read that this summer might be the last for Insalata Caprese, if the Commission gets its way (they want to ban growing herbs, apparently). I will be looking into the candidates’ position on that, come election time. Now, won’t that be interesting?