Exceptions to the Principle of Free Transmission and Retransmission of Audiovisual Media Content – Recent European Case-Law
Exceptions to the Principle of Free Transmission and Retransmission of Audiovisual Media Content – Recent European Case-Law

Summary/Abstract: Case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union as well as procedures taking place before the Commission aiming to clarify certain aspects regarding freedom of services – in this case, the principle of free transmission and retransmission of audiovisual media services – have always been regarded as particularly important in offering guidance in interpreting and applying European legal norms. The adoption in December 2018 of the revised text of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (Directive 2018/1808) marks the transition to a new, amended legal framework. It also enables the critical review of the last case decided before the Court of Justice of the European Union, still instrumented according to the provisions of Directive 2010/13/ EU: Case C-622/17 (Baltic Media Alliance v Lietuvos radijo ir televizijos komisija). While the main focus of the present paper lies with Case C-622/17, for a cogent understanding of the extended judicial and legal context of the case, we will briefly examine the four procedures successfully submitted to the Commission (by Lithuania and Latvia between 2015 and 2018), based on Art. 3 of the AVMSD (restriction based on public policy reasons – in this case, incitement to hatred), and the only procedure based on Art. 4 (the ‘anticircumvention procedure’) submitted in the lifespan of Directive 2010/13/EU by the Kingdom of Sweden (2017).

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