Cullen International has just published two new benchmarks tracking the progress in the transposition of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive across 14 European countries and the most interesting proposals under discussion.

Since the last report, two more countries have transposed the directive:

• The Finnish Parliament approved the law on 7 December 2020 and the new rules are in force since 1 January 2021.
• In France, the government ordinance transposing the directive (as authorised by a law adopted in November 2020 aiming to transpose various EU legal instruments) was published in the Official Journal on 23 December 2020. However, full transposition also requires the modification of two existing application decrees. 

Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK also transposed the directive. The UK was bound to implement the directive since the transposition deadline fell before the end of the Brexit transition period (end of 2020). The arrangements after this date are covered in a separate report.

The process has moved forward in a number of other countries:

• The Irish government published its general scheme on an Online Safety and Media Regulation and the bill is now ready to be tabled in Parliament.
• In Belgium (Wallonia), the draft decree was introduced in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation Parliament, where the culture committee is expected to start its examination at the end of January 2021.
• In Italy, the lead committee of the Parliament's Camera concluded without amendments the examination of the draft law (as approved by Senate in first reading in October 2020) that delegates to the government the powers to implement the directive by legislative decree. The timing of the first reading vote in the Camera assembly is unknown as the future of the current government coalition is currently uncertain. 

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