Mark Beunderman | Brussels | August 29

EUobserver - EU communication commissioner Margot Wallstrom told EUobserver on Monday (29 August) that broadcasting by Euronews in Arabic would be important in "building bridges" to the Muslim world.

Adding Arabic to the list of languages – which currently includes English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish – would require an additional investment of between €3 and €5 million, commission officials said.

Talks on co-operation between Euronews and Lebanese channel LBC had been ongoing until they were interrupted by the recent war in Lebanon.

Euronews has a global reach, distributing to 140 million households in Europe, as well as to almost 16 million households in the Middle East and Africa.

Spanish conservative MEP Luis Herrero said "You come up with a lot of ideas but ultimately you are short of finances," stressing that communication policy in the EU currently has no legal basis in the EU treaty which makes longer-term budget planning extremely hard.

Tim Wise, a British eurosceptic MEP, rejected the Euronews project altogether, describing it as "mindblowingly dull propaganda of the worst sort."

Comment:
I wonder when a representative in the USA says the same about Fox News/CNN. There is a freedom of speech in the USA, isn't there?