Feb 13, 2012 - "The progress that is being made for national and regional radio sharply contrasts with digitization of community (local) radio stations." This is the assertion made in a letter from Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE) and AMARC-Europe (the European regional section of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters) to Neelie Kroes, The European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda.

Kroes has responded to the letter by way of Gerard de Graf (Director Audiovisual, Media, Internet Information Society and Media Directorate-General European Commission). In his response letter, de Graf writes "I would like to remind you that the European Union does not currently have a common policy on radio broadcasting. Member States and the Commission have considered up to now that the crossborder element in radio transmission is insufficient in itself to justify the establishment of a fully-fledged EU radio policy." And further: "...there seems to be a consensus that the future of radio distribution will be multi-platform, including Internet distribution, which offers an alternative in a number of situations. Second, terrestrial distribution is still the sole platform for truly mobile reception, in particular in cars. In this context, a number of terrestrial radio standards are already in use across member states for distributing national and regional services, i.e. the DAB family of standards. There is also the DRM family conceived as a separate, but complementary development."

Mr de Graf's complete letter of response is posted online.