Mr President, whenever the Commission appeared before this House during the last parliamentary term and was frightened to act on anything, it would ask for further consultation or hide behind the argument of subsidiarity. On this issue it is doing both: it is looking for further consultation, and it is hiding behind national laws as a pretext for doing nothing at European level. All this does is show that the Commission frankly does not have the political stomach to deal with an issue which is going to affect every citizen in the European Union.

Cross-media ownership is an issue which every other major international or national organization has dealt with. I have heard some references today to the United States of America, which is probably the quintessential free market. The United States would not permit the sort of cross-media ownership that we are now allowing to take place in the European Union. It has rules and regulations to prevent the sort of thing that the Commission is going to allow to take place here in the European Union.

I do not accept the argument that there is a need for further consultation, because I have spoken to some of the people the Commission consulted. Many of those people were surprised that the Commission has not come forward with a communication or a directive on the issue of media ownership. I would like the Commissioner to tell us which organizations have asked for further consultation. I want to make this point clear to Commissioner Vanni d'Archirafi: while he may feel that he can get out of this by asking for further consultation, the members of the Socialist Group and, I believe, many other groups in this House will come back to this issue week after week, month after month, until we get the Commission to act on something which is of fundamental importance to the freedom of every citizen in the European Union. We expect you to act as a matter of urgency, Commissioner.