Brussels - The European Commission on Thursday rejected calls for Italy to be suspended from the European Union on account of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's dominance of his country's media. Earlier this week Green leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit called on national governments to consider suspending Italy ahead of a debate in the European Parliament on freedom of the press in Italy.
Article 7 of the EU treaty states that the bloc can suspend certain rights of a member state if it has determined the existence of "a serious and persistent breach" of the principles of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the country in question.
Berlusconi owns several newspapers and magazines as well as Italy's three main private television networks. He also has indirect control over his Mediaset company's main rival, state television RAI, through his parliamentary majority.
Viviane Reding, the EU's media commissioner, noted that Article 7 was "a very exceptional provision" that had never been applied before.
"The clause would only apply if there was a complete breakdown of national jurisdictional orders and fundamental rights systems. It goes without saying that we have not reached such a situation in any member state of the EU," Reding told MEPs.
The closest the EU ever came to suspending the rights of a member state, Austria, was in 2000, when far-right leader Joerg Haider joined the then Austrian government.
In her speech Thursday, Reding defended the commission's track record on upholding freedom of the media, including in Italy.
The commissioner said she would be open to talks on a possible EU-wide directive on media pluralism and media concentration, but only if MEPs were able to demonstrate that Berlusconi or others were violating the bloc's internal market rules, or if there was a cross-border dimension to the problem.
"Just to say 'I dont want this or that person in government in this or that country' will not suffice to justify EU legislation," Reding told MEPs.
Her comments came a day after Italy's constitutional court overturned a law granting Berlusconi immunity from prosecution.
The case has received widespread publicity in the European media.
