Spanish TVE's News Council will this Wednesday go to the European Parliament to ask it to evaluate whether the corporation fulfils "the principles of objectivity, plurality and impartiality" it is obliged to, being a public broadcaster. The staff's aim is to denounce the situation of defencelessness they are suffering facing the cases of news manipulation, according to Vertele.
The move comes after, on 22nd October last year, the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions accepted a request from the council for two reports, one from the European Commission and another from the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on the matter.
TVE, like the other public broadcasters around Spain, is governed by both Spanish legislation and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
TVE's staff have denounced on various occasions the treatment of certain stories, many referring to the Catalan independence process, because they believe hasn't been covered following the principles of objectivity and plurality. Among recent controversies was playing a song from The Excorcist (link in Catalan) over images of president Carles Puigdemont.
The News Council, whose members are voted for by TVE staff, was defined in the law which created it as an "internal body... to watch over the independence and objectivity and veracity of the news content broadcast by [TVE]".