European Parliament Takes On Blogs (Symbolically)

The 22nd of September is probably a date to put in your Calendar, as the European Parliament will vote on an 'own initiative report' from Estonian MEP Marianne Mikko on (among other things)... blogs.

Are blogs even a pan-European issue? Not quite, if you ask me. Most of the reading and blogging is done in a national discourse. There is little advertising by international companies across different blog markets. To get into discussing the few dozens of euroblogs is really too much. So, subsidiarity should apply.

To get any doubts out of the way: the 'own initiative report' - if it gets adopted by the European Parliament - (perhaps as, or including, a resolution?) does not mean anything. Legally. See Jon Worth and Kosmopolit for some exaggeration by eurosceptics and the Swedish press on this matter.

Still, it would be nice if the European Parliament were to drop this. It makes too many of these meaningless resolutions at any rate.

For your benefit, here are the relevant bits from Mikko's report, as adapted by the Culture and Education committee in the European Parliament, and adopted 33 to 1 as a 'draft opinion' by that Committee:

(Recital) O. whereas weblogs are an increasingly common medium for self-expression by media professionals as well as private persons, the status of their authors and publishers, including their legal status, is neither determined nor made clear to the readers of the weblogs, causing uncertainties regarding impartiality, reliability, source protection, applicability of ethical codes and the assignment of liability in the event of lawsuits,

(Paragraph) 9. suggests clarifying the legal status of weblogs and sites based on user-generated content, assimilating them for legal purposes with any other form of public expression,

The paragraph in this case being the operative (still symbolic, but apparently less so) part of the text.

Informed by a sensationalist European Tribune diary and the fact-finding in the comments.

This wiki tracks the proposal.