Sir, - Recent newspaper reports have given a misleading impression that a complaint made two years ago by TV3 to the European Commission about RTE's use of public funding is somehow linked to our current licence fee application. Despite efforts by TV3 to link the two and create confusion, its complaint to the Commission and our application for an increase are not connected.
Following the complaint by TV3, the commission responded by examining it in a preliminary way. It sought information from the Government about public funding and the broadcasting marketplace. In response to an inquiry by an MEP, it wrote back some months ago formally advising that it appears that these are matters that need examining. We've heard no more than that.
Throughout Europe, commercial broadcasters have been making complaints about their publicly funded competitors. These complaints are part of a commercial strategy. Although some of these complaints were filed some seven years ago, to date the commission has not given a ruling on them. The commission indicated in February of this year that it would issue new guidelines in relation to the funding of public service broadcasting. To date, no such guidelines have been published. The commission has, however, been supportive of public service broadcasting and this has been recognised in the Amsterdam Treaty Protocol.
In European law, it falls to the governments of member-states to say how public broadcasting is funded and what obligations public broadcasters, such as RTE, must fulfil. RTE is satisfied that its use of licence fee funding is compliant with EU competition law.
TV3's complaint predated RTE's licence fee application by more than a year. There is, as far as we know, no connection between the licence fee application and any action which the European Commission may have initiated. - Yours, etc.,
Kevin Healy, Director of Public Affairs, RTE, Dublin 4.