Oreste Pollicino Analyzes Media Law for Hungary

Called to analyze the powers and independence of the Italian Authority for Communications Guarantees (AGCOM) to compare them to what the new authority proposed by the Hungarian government regulating media law in the country could have. Oreste Pollicino, Associate Professor at Bocconi in Comparative Constitutional Law, and Marco Bellezza, Lecturer in Media Law at Università di Bari, worked on the part dedicated to Italy in the document "Hungarian Media Laws in Europe", an investigation on media law in various European countries, written by the Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) at the Central European University in Budapest.

"In the context of new reforms, a radical reorganization of media law was also established which, among other things, calls for the creation of a media authority who makes final decisions on the topic of regulation," explains Pollicino. "The reform was greatly criticized and claims that the authority does not have enough independence from the executive have been made, while, according to the government, the reform process has not distanced itself from the general organization of media law in Europe and that the powers of the new authority are the same as those of similar organizations in France, Italy or Germany." To verify the government's claims, the Center for Media and Communication Studies decided to make a comparison with the situation in other European countries. "We have analyzed the powers of the Italian authority in the area, AGCOM," continues Pollicino, "and we have compared its characteristics with what has been declared and done by the government." What has emerged from the analysis of the Italian case and the situation of the European countries examined in the document? "It appears that the position of the new authority is abnormal compared to European authorities, both regarding powers and regarding the independence of the organization." The CMCS document will be discussed on 19 March in Budapest during a round table with the experts who wrote the document and government representatives.