Media Policy and Globalization - Blogs Unpad

92 MEDIA POLICY AND GLOBALIZATION
defined and organized by each Member State, and that such funding
does not affect trading conditions and competition in the Community
to an extent which would be contrary to the common interest, while
the realization of the remit of that public service shall be taken into
account. (para j Treaty of the European Community 1997)
Despite the positive declarations of the PSB Protocol, as it became
known, support for PSBs is still restricted by their relation to private
communication industries by the clause that ‘funding does not affect trading
conditions and competition’ in the EU. This is yet another example
of the powers at work at a supranational and fundamental level of the
constitutional definition of rights. The ‘spirit’ of European integration
is captured in this paragraph as perhaps nowhere else: this fundamental
piece of European identity, the concept of PSB, is renegotiated and
reintroduced in the internal politics of nation-states. However, this time,
PSBs, a matter clearly of national importance, are subject to market-led
conditions of competition and transborder mobility of goods and services,
as established by the European project. On the one hand, the official
recognition of the special role of publicly owned and run broadcasting
systems constitutes an important public statement about the political responsibility
to protect public spaces, although for a variety of not always
compatible reasons, on behalf of nation-states, parliamentarians, broadcasters
and media workers in Europe. On the other hand, neither PSBs
nor the normative ideal of publics-centred communication ‘services’ (that
is, content) came out of this battle unbruised. Once on the agenda, the
case of state or public support and financing of PSBs will require the constant
alertness of advocates in elite formal politics and behind-the-scenes
deliberations, especially where private interests are particularly strong.
Across Europe, PSBs had to defend their position and role in European
societies anew and situate themselves within the market and a competitive
communications system. The two main problems that PSBs have
commonly had to deal with have been political interference and political
dependency on the one hand and declining, inadequate financing on the
other. As Burgelman and Perceval (1996) argue of the Belgian PSB, it is
‘absurd to discuss the crisis of public service broadcasting in terms of programme
quality or public perception’ (101) when the problem of lack of
political autonomy remains largely unresolved. For these authors, funding
is part of this same question of political dependency that has rendered
even adequate amounts of financial support insufficient. Following the
general collapse of the state’s capacity in the public domain, the declining
support for PSBs presents a major obstacle to an independent and public
interest focused determination of the role of communication services.