(Original: French)
Considering the major advances in the media and communication field from the point of view of technology, content, and methods of management;
Considering the international and social discrepancies concerning the media and access to information;
Considering the basic role of the media in the information society;
Considering the need for all the inhabitants of the Mediterranean countries to benefit from equal opportunities with regard to the prodigious development, still often badly controlled and mismanaged, of information superhighways, multimedia and information technology,
the Socialist International Mediterranean Committee, meeting in Tangier on 21 and 22 March 1997:
1. Reaffirms the need to promote a fundamental reflection on socialist strategy and policy with regard to the information society, within the framework of proposals for modern socialism in the twenty-first century.
2. Insists on the importance of the struggle for a new order of information which will allow equal access to global information and knowledge.
3. Reaffirms in particular the following principles in the field of media and communication:
- Extension of freedom of information and the right to information.
- Promotion of new media.
- Action for diversity.
- Control of the process of globalisation.
- Development of partnership.
- Measures to counteract monopolies.
- Development of decentralisation and participation.
4. Decides to set up a working group in order to prepare a programme of work for approval at the next meeting of the Mediterranean Committee. This programme will give particular consideration to the following points:
a) Preparation of the establishment of a permanent seminar on media and politics within the Mediterranean Committee.
b) Drafting and distribution of periodic reports on communication and democracy in the Mediterranean.
c) Creation of a Euro-Mediterranean platform to defend the cultural rights of emigrant populations.
d) Strengthening the cooperation links between the Mediterranean Committee and the media.
5. Undertakes to promote the agreements of the Euromed Civil Forum of Barcelona with regard to the media and communication.
6. Undertakes to take initiatives aimed at putting an end to censorship, harassment of journalists and restrictions of any nature on the right to information in countries where this right is not guaranteed.