The Green Paper is a typical Commission mixture of current technology
trends (dual screening gets a mention), market statistics leavened with a few anecdotes,
lobbyists’ issues of the moment and hints of interventions that the Commission may
have in mind for the future. These are all underpinned by an unwavering belief in the efficacy
of State-led intervention to achieve the Commission’s chosen public policy objectives.
As is de rigeur in
documents such as this, the Commission has a grand vision: “to seize the opportunity of this
changing technological environment to ensure the widest possible access to
European diversified content for all Europeans and, the widest choice of high
quality offers”. That hints of a more interventionist Fortress Europe attitude
than the Commission’s December 1997 Convergence Green Paper (PDF): “This first step is intended to
pave the way for the development of an appropriate regulatory environment which
will facilitate the full achievement of the opportunities offered by the
Information Society, in the interests of Europe and its citizens as the 21st
century begins.”
Beyond the grand vision there is some fairly controversial stuff
in the new Green Paper, particularly around the possibility of extending the Audiovisual MediaServices Directive both in scope and to non-EU service providers. 
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