MP says EEA rules were used to expand media oversight

Centre Party MP Bergþór Ólason says Iceland’s EEA commitments were used as a pretext to impose stricter media regulation than necessary. He made the comments in an interview with Morgunblaðið’s Dagmál programme, reported by mbl.is.

Ólason is proposing that parliament abolish the Media Commission, transfer its necessary tasks to the Communications Office, a communications agency, and scrap the rest. He says the commission has steadily increased its influence without improving conditions for privately owned media.

While preparing his bill, Ólason said he sought to understand why the commission had been established after the crash. He concluded that it resulted from a combination of government paternalism and the “gold-plating” of European rules. He pointed to the government of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir and Steingrímur J. Sigfússon, saying Iceland added domestic requirements that were not required by the European rules being implemented.

Ólason said the resulting “cocktail” produced an independent media commission that later pushed for greater influence. He particularly criticised state involvement in editorial policies and said he had not realised how extensive the regulation was. He linked it to a system of annual grants for media organisations, rather than efforts to improve the conditions in which they operate.

Asked why earlier governments, including ones he supported, had not reversed the arrangement, Ólason said the EEA-related part of the issue was not especially complicated and was addressed in his bill. He argued that the original legislation went much further than necessary and that establishing an independent commission was unnecessary.

He also criticised the commission’s interest in podcasts, saying he had not seen a comparable approach elsewhere in the Nordic countries. In his view, the commission expanded its powers without seeking political approval for the changes. He said the test should be whether the changes had improved matters, and argued they had not, pointing to the long-running difficulties faced by privately owned media.