Monitoring the independence of the media regulatory body as an effective enforcement mechanism for the implementation of the AVMSD

The revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) has brought about the long-awaited policy shift towards making the independence of regulatory bodies an explicit European legal requirement. At the same time, even on the points that it does regulate in detail, the AVMSD leaves many issues unresolved. Ultimately, it does not put the European Commission in a position either to verify whether national authorities are taking truly unbiased and impartial decisions or to enforce that they do.