If today’s Westminster Media Forum seminar on the Television Without Frontiers Directive is any guide, being a DCMS official with newly-appointed Minister for Creative Industries Shaun Woodward must be an exciting experience. Having a Minister who knows the subject (he worked for the BBC for 10 years) and his mind (he is very outspoken) must be scary at times.

At this morning’s seminar, Woodward constantly left his prepared script to make trenchant criticisms of the European Commission’s new Audiovisual Media Services Directive that were not exactly nuanced – thereby belying his comment that ‘Any conversation about the Television Without Frontiers Directive is a bit like paint drying’. He confided in his audience that his officials had warned him against giving the impression that the UK Government is completely negative about Commissioner Reding’s proposals, but then insisted: ‘We are’. He asserted: ‘She’s got it wrong. We are right to be completely negative about it.’

The Minister explained that ‘the fundamental flaw’ in the proposals is ‘the absolute lack of clarity’ about the definitions and the scope, suggesting that the present proposals could even apply to personal weblogs. More particularly, he expressed concern about the inclusion in the new Directive of non-linear services, arguing that such services were easily portable to non-EU parts of the world such as the Far East.

He acknowledged that so far the UK has been alone in opposing the new Directive, though he said that, at the Council of Ministers meeting on 18 May, Slovakia had supported the British (since then, the Slovak Government has changed). He expressed the view that in other countries telecommunications and broadcasting companies are not engaging with their governments on the the Commission’s plans as has happened in the UK.

He made reference after reference to the Common Agricultural Policy, asserting that this is what happens when Member States get things wrong: ‘This Directive is in exactly the same mode as the CAP in 1957′. However, he finished on a positive note - ‘We can achieve consensus at the end of the day’ - while urging that the Commission takes more time to develop its proposals and hinting that blocking the measure ‘may be the best way forward’ as ‘a short-term measure’.

It was left to Granville Williams of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, commenting from the floor, to suggest that the Minister has been ‘a bit apocalyptic’. He said that he had been to discussions in Europe on the Directive where many of the UK’s concerns had been addressed. Another floor contributor was Harald Trettenbrein, Head of Sector, Information Society & Media Directorate-General at the European Commission, who was clearly frustrated at what he saw as misunderstandings by the British of the Commission’s proposals. For instance, he insisted: ‘You can use self- and co-regulation’.

Alex Blowers, Director of International at Ofcom, gave a more measured and conciliatory exposition of the British position. He defended the country of origin principle and welcomed the liberalisation of advertising rules, but challenged the ‘gap of understanding’ around the extension of scope of the Directive, questioning the impact particularly on blogs and social networking sites, on-line video games, and video on demand services. He explained that Ofcom, which has no formal role in the deliberations on the new Directive, has commissioned Rand Europe to look more closely at how the proposals would impact on three areas: mobile, on-line gaming and IP television.

He cautioned the Commission against attempting to draft a future-proof definition of services to be covered by the new Directive. He proposed that instead we needed to have ‘a moment in time definition’ and we should then come back to this in a few years time in the light of new technologies and services.

Towards the end of the seminar, a Spanish MEP Ignasi Guardans Cambo referred to Don Quixote and suggested that many of the British concerns seemed to be tilting at windmills. So, there you have it: either the new Directive is a disaster on the scale of the Common Agricultural Policy or ‘It’s just a windmill’.