Press Statement.

The Council for European Public Space (CfEPS) welcomes the Commission’s statement on the ‘Apply AI’ and ‘AI in Science’ strategies. The CfEPS particularly welcomes the Commission’s initiative to

 

„help the development of pan-European platforms using multilingual AI technologies to make available real-time news and information from professional media outlets across the EU to wider audiences. AI will be harnessed to translate content for relevant channels – including broadcasting – through classification, recognition, linguistic analysis and translation of content. “

 

The CfEPS has been promoting a European News Streaming Platform, which makes visible in all EU languages the news and current affairs programmes produced in licensed TV Stations of Member States. It has collaborated with various MEPs to this end. The support of Dr. Christian Ehler, Chair of the European Parliament’s STOA Panel has been of particular importance. He initiated two relevant studies under STOA, which demonstrated the technical and legal feasibility of the initiative. Moreover, they have demonstrated the additional contribution that such a comparatively small investment in technical infrastructure would make to increasing the supply of reliable, professionally produced news for all Member States.

 

In addition, by overcoming language barriers in real time, such an infrastructure for reliable information will make a significant contribution to a unified, inclusive European public sphere in which all European citizens will have access to the same verified information from journalists working for licensed TV Stations in EU Member States.

 

It is to be noted that the platform which we envisage under the title “See.EU”, is neither producing own content nor does it take any editorial decisions. It is for this reason that the governance arrangements can be simple while ensuring distance from EU Institutions and Member States Governments. Participating TV Stations should put all news they produce on the streaming platform. This governance principle of “all or nothing” serves to ensure that an authentic and complete view of the news of participating stations is supplied.

 

European citizens will be able to search and see all news in an EU language of their choice. This allows them to see a Member State, certain themes in the news or their own country through the news emissions of a variety of Member States an authentic manner.  By allowing users to choose content rather than having a central editorial service, the platform conforms with new viewing habits of streaming and online viewers and keeps governance of the platform cheap and simple.

 

The establishment of such a European public sphere can improve Europe’s capacity for action and unity. CfEPS very much welcomes the support of the European Commission for this initiative by making it a flagship of the Apply AI Strategy. CfEPS will continue to work with MEPs, the European Commission and other interested parties, including renowned European media players, with the aim of making this bold European idea a reality.

 

The Council for European Public Space (CfEPS) is a European Stakeholder Organisation in the form of a public interest company registered in Berlin and supported by the European Cultural Foundation. It has developed a detailed governance concept for the “See.EU” platform and now looks forward to implementing this in practice, with participating stations and a broad variety of other partners and the support of the European Parliament and the European Commission.

 

The STOA Studies can be found here:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/stoa/en/document/EPRS_STU(2025)774661

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/stoa/en/document/EPRS_STU(2023)740249