EU Media Policy: Recent Features

EU media policy has to be considered as an element of the overall economic goals of the EU: it pursues those goals rather than genuine media policy objectives such as freedom of expression, pluralism and diversity, democratic function of media, equal access to information or the notion of programme or content quality. Any meaningful evaluation of media policy of the European Union needs to distinguish between two different concepts: the economic objectives of the EU, the adherence of member state's legislation to EU standards, the completion of the single market, the degree of legislative alignment to harmonized media matters, the macro-economic achievements at the level of job-creation, foreign trade and growth of the sector on the one hand, and further reaching media policy aims as regards social, intellectual and cultural welfare of Europe's public on the other.