Mr President, firstly, I must do something that is rather unusual in this House: I must declare an interest. I have spent a lot of my working life in the media and I still have media interests. Those who wish to know more should consult the Register of Members' Interests.

I have followed this debate with some concern because it is perfectly apparent that the Members on that side of the House when talking about 'pluralism' mean 'more concentration', and preferably more concentration in the hands of Member State governments. Indeed, as Mr Posselt has pointed out, government monopolies are even worse than private monopolies.

But it is a single market matter. In spite of colleagues over there saying that it is nothing to do with the single market, it is. Because it is in the media where we do not have a single market. Indeed, it is in the media where we have not only a two-speed Europe but a multi-speed Europe, and it is a field where the United Kingdom, and one or two other countries, are in the fast lane. And what is the result of that? It is that the media industry in the United Kingdom in certain sectors is world-beating, as well as generating a positive balance of payments for both television programmes and films. In other words, liberalization pays off better than restriction.

I wish to address a remark to the Commissioner: if the Commission does finally come forward with a proposal, I hope that the proposal will be rather more towards liberalization than towards the type of restrictions which people have been asking for on that side of the House.

As paragraph 5 of the joint motion for a resolution says, there is a need to harmonize national legislation. I quote the example of the United Kingdom again: a few years back we changed our Television Act to allow investment, indeed takeover, by other people from outside the United Kingdom in our independent television companies. But there is no reciprocity. A British television company can be taken over by a German or a French television company but that is not allowed in the opposite direction. That is where the Commission needs to legislate, just as the Commission needs to legislate over free access to cable systems. Certainly, some countries in the European Community limit access to cable systems.

We have heard too about the independence of journalists. Well we have a way of dealing with that in the United Kingdom. There is a little rhyme which summarizes it, and I apologize to the interpreters because they will not be able to translate it: "You cannot hope to bribe or twist the sturdy British journalist. For seeing what unbribed they'll do, there really is no reason to."