Europeans Move to Limit Number of U.S. TV Shows Shown Abroad

The European Parliament on Wednesday adopted proposals for a law that would cut the number of U.S. television programs shown in Europe, despite intense lobbying from the United States.

The proposed law will most likely be adopted by the governments of the 12 European Community members at a meeting in Luxembourg June 14.

The proposal was designed to coordinate broadcasting regulations in the EC and includes provisions to reserve a majority of transmission time to European works and to limit the amount of advertising allowed on television.

Parliamentarians adopted a strongly worded amendment to try to ensure that at least 50.1% of entertainment programs broadcast be European-produced by 1993.

Last week, Carla A. Hills, the U.S. trade representative, sent a letter to Lord Plumb, president of the European Parliament, to express Washington’s strong objections to the proposal.

“The enactment of such a measure is unjustifiable and would almost certainly have a disastrous effect on the U.S. industry’s substantial European earnings,” Hills wrote.

“Whatever benefits this television directive might promise to bring to Europe will undoubtedly be outweighed by its extremely negative impact on our bilateral trade relations,” she said.

Hills warned that if the measure were adopted, she would “have no choice but to consider how to proceed in response to it under . . . ‘Super 301’ provisions.”

These provisions allow the United States to issue a list of nations that have erected the most harmful barriers against U.S. products. The Administration would have 18 months to negotiate the removal of the barriers, and, if it failed, it could slap 100% levies on imports from these trading partners.

Members of the U.S. delegation said legislators had listened to their arguments but said the TV law was “a matter of political concern.”

The measure is part of steps being taken by the European Community in its drive to form a single market by the end of 1992.