§ Mr. GaleTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made at the ministerial conference in Vienna towards the establishment of a European convention on transfrontier broadcasting; if he expects such a convention to be ready for adoption and signature at the second ministerial conference on mass media policy due to take place in Stockholm in November; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. RentonI represented the United Kingdom at an informal meeting of Council of Europe Broadcasting Ministers which took place in Vienna on 12–13 April. The object of the meeting was to discuss various outstanding points of difficulty on the draft Council of Europe convention on transfrontier broadcasting with a view to guiding the further work of the Council's steering committee on the mass media which is charged with finalising the text of the draft instrument.
The meeting endorsed the general framework of the draft convention and made useful progress towards 408W resolving a number of issues, including European programme content, duration of advertising, the field of application of the convention, and its enforcement procedures.
The main issue still outstanding concerns the rules governing advertising breaks within programmes, on which no formula has yet been found which satisfactorily accommodates the differing arrangements in individual member states of the Council. Further meetings of the steering committee are plannned over the next few months at which the text will be considered in the light of the ministerial discussions, and it remains our hope that the convention can be finalised and opened for signature at or before the ministerial conference in Stockholm in November.