OSCE Media Representative responds to criticism from Italian parliamentarian

VIENNA, 25 February 2003 - The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Freimut Duve, has responded to criticism from an Italian member of Parliament regarding his position on the concentration of media ownership in Italy.

During the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Winter Meeting in Vienna on 20-21 February, Marcello Pacini accused Duve of being "radically left-wing" and questioned his right to speak on behalf of the OSCE.

In a letter to Pacini on Tuesday, Duve said those who referred to critics of the concentration of the media as "radically left-wing" succumbed to a "dangerous duality" of branding different thinking as either "left" or "right" instead of focusing on constitutional norms and values.

"This duality weakens the pre-eminent importance of the constitution and the rule of law," the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media said. "The fact that it is an elected Italian parliamentarian who uses this dual pattern of arguing against me in front of the whole Assembly is not a good sign of the culture of pluralistic debate in Italy."

Without a clear debate about European constitutional values and their overriding predominance over party programmes, there would be no solution to Italy's problems in the field of the media, Duve added.