EU 집행위원회의 공영방송 재원 규제: EU 국가보조 금지 법규와 공영방송

Abstract

수신료 등 공영방송의 공적 재원에 대한 EU 집행위원회(EC)의 규제에 대해 알아보았다. 이를 위해 EU 조약 내의 국가보조(State aid) 금지 등 관련 조항들과 EC가 공표한 가이드라인 등을 검토하였다. 아울러 공영방송 공적 재원과 관련해 문제가 제기된 사례들을 EC가 어떻게 처리하고 결정했는지 분석하였다. 그 결과, EC는 기본적으로 수신료 등을 EU 기능조약(TFEU) 107조 1항에서 금지하는 국가보조로 전제하고 있음을 알 수 있었다. 그 대신 EC는 이것에 ‘일반적 경제이익 서비스’(Service of General Economic Interest) 조항(TFEU 106조 2항)을 적용, 특정 조건 아래 용인하는 프레임을 지닌다. 그런데 이 특정 조건의 설정과 해석 등을 역내 자유시장을 주요 목표로 하는 EC가 설정하면서 유럽 공영방송이 공영미디어로 이행해가는 것을 제한해왔다. 이 과정에서 공영방송 수신료 등에 대한 투명성은 제고되었으나, 개별 국가의 자율성은 약해졌으며 공영방송도 지속 가능성에 부담을 갖게 되었다는 평가를 받는다. EU의 사례는 한국에서 공영방송의 진화 가능성을 생각한다면 공영방송에 대한 정체성과 수신료의 의미 등을 재점검해보아야 한다는 시사점을 준다.

The KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) board of directors in June 2021 voted on a plan to increase the license fee of its public service broadcaster. Discussions at the National Assembly on the increase plan, which passed through the Korea Communications Commission to the legislature according to the law, have stalled as of June 2022, a year later. The support of the citizens currently is not higher than that of the past three failed attempts to raise the fee. Also, the Korean formula "the government and the ruling party support the increase, while the opposition party objects to it" seems to have broken. One can interpret this as proof that unlike the past, the adhesion between the regime and KBS has weakened. On the other hand, it may be a sign that even the government and the ruling party are opposed to or lukewarm about the increase in license fees. However, one can conclude that they are not interested in financial stability of public service broadcasting (PSB). In fact, KBS is in a difficult state to predict the future. In the past 10 years before the COVID-19 pandemic, the public broadcaster suffered operating losses almost every year. With revenue fixed at less than 1.5 trillion Korean won, if KBS has ever seen a surplus in a year, it is because it has reduced production spending or sold assets such as real estate. As a result, so-called “emergency management,” which reduces the size of expenditure, has become a routine. Considering the increase in GDP of South Korea so far, KBS's real revenue and production expenditure can be interpreted that it actually dropped more than 40%. Fortunately, the decline was able to stop at this level because the program sales revenue supplemented the decreasing advertising sales. One-person households, which increased with changes in the social structure of Korea, also helped increase the license fees revenue charged by each household. If the attempt to raise the license fee fails again and the increase in one-person households stagnates, KBS will fall into a vicious circle where its financial status becomes more worse and it gets away from viewers' attention as its performance weakens, and it is difficult to obtain consent from citizens for raising license fees. One more thing to consider here is KBS's online media activities. Currently, there are few regulations that prevent KBS from expanding into any new service areas such as YouTube or news web pages, regardless of whether it uses any financial resources such as license fees or advertising income. There has been strong advice from media experts to go further in advancing new media, but KBS is criticized for being trapped in a paradigm centered on terrestrial broadcasting. This is in stark contrast to its Western counterparts, which is having difficulty entering the new media area due to various restrictions. Major Western public broadcasters have struggled to transform to public service media (PSM) due to opposition from commercial broadcasters and commercial online media competitors. In particular, the position of the European Commission (EC), which should seek fairness in trade according to regional integration, has become an important restriction. Assuming the possibility of the evolution of PSB in Korea, it is necessary to re-examine the identity of this social institution and the meaning of license fees in advance in consideration of the EU case. Although the use of license fees in the new media sector is not yet on the agenda in Korea, if PSB expands its influence in the new media market with higher license fees, commercial competitors may start to raise the issue as in Europe. It may be crucial to check this matter in advance and establish a framework for understanding the use of public funds and its conditions. For this reason, this article examines the European Commission’s policy on the application of State aid rules to PSB. Related provisions in the EU treaties and guidelines set out by the Commission are reviewed. In addition, it analyzes how the EC decided on the complaints raised by commercial competitors against public funding of PSB. The EC presupposes public financing of PSB including the license fee as State aid prohibited in Article 107 (1) TFEU. Instead, the Commission has applied the Service of General Economic Interest clause in 106 (2) TFEU for exonerating PSB from the State aid rules with certain conditions. In this process the EC has contributed to enhancing the transparency in PSB license fees while limiting the competency of individual member states. In addition, the EC with the main goal of the free market in the region has hindered the transition of European PSB to PSM by setting and interpreting the conditions. The case of the EU suggests that considering the possibility of the evolution of PSB in South Korea, the remit of this institution and the meaning of license fees should be re-examined. The case of the European Union has two implications for discussions surrounding PSB in Korea. First, Korean PSB has weaker restrictions on expanding and transforming into PSM than those in Europe. The idea of a new project usually can be conducted by the management with the resolution of the board of directors. Inevitably, there can be social controversy at times; however, it is often unrelated to legal issues. For example, if KBS tries to run a children's channel through its subsidiary KBS N, there are few conditions such as having to review its public value or market impact. If KBS, which lingers on terrestrial broadcasting, has the will, it can immediately launch text news service on the website, which has often been a problem in Europe. This stems from the fact that there is no clear legal definition of PSB in Korea, and that KBS's remit is only listed as abstract or overly peripheral in the Broadcasting Act. It is a problem to prioritize the market and restrict public broadcasting in the EU, but the lack of definition, mission assignment, and evaluation of PSB in Korea will not be positive for the function that society needs. Second, several ideas such as "separation of accounts between public and commercial activities," "establishment of license fees calculation committee," and "agreement between the government and PSB," which are often brought up as ways to ensure transparency and efficiency in PSB expenditure in Korea, are imported from the West without referring its contexts. Originally, these concepts were implemented to prevent public broadcasting from entering the commercial area in EU and damaging fair competition. However, when discussing these concepts in Korea as a single state, the purpose is to increase transparency and efficiency rather than to ensure fair competition. Although the possibility that the injection of public funds into non-public undertakings will undermine fair competition is not only a matter of inter-country level, the solution of the problem in Korea is being discussed in a way that simply borrows the concept of the EU with different contexts. For transparency and efficiency of expenditure, other measures that can be adopted more easily and without side effects should be considered first. In addition, to discuss these proposals, it is necessary to first enact (revise) laws and regulations that are insufficient in areas such as the definition of PSB, mission assignment, and financial resources. We can expect inefficiency in the use of resources due to accounting separation, the creation of a new partisan organization called the License Fees Calculation Committee, as well as the undermining of public broadcasters' independence as they compete for license fee allocation. Agreements with the government also put public broadcasters more vulnerable to the power. However, if the relevant legislation is properly tidied up, these proposals may also be expected to produce desirable results.