Gaming in the Czech Parliament The article is not about Czech MPs playing games instead of discussing new laws of course. It is not even about games themselves. We would like to report, however, that the Czech Saferinternet project is trying to initiate a systematic dialogue with media, industry and politicians.

As the Czech Insafe node, we have already given details of our presentation of the PEGI system to the national parliament in Prague. MPs expressed their interest but the time slot was too short to allow for a full debate and the European consumer protection directive was transposed to Czech law without the inclusion of the amendments we were proposing. 

But the game goes on – the Czech Council for radio and TV broadcasting in cooperation with the Czech Ministry of culture organised a meeting with Wim Bekkers of NICAM in January 2008. The objective of the meeting was to introduce the Kijkwizer system and show its value to Czech politicians. The event had a limited success: media and industry were interested but politicians ignored the meeting.

In order to effect a change in this attitude and to attract more politicians, we are now organising a conference directly in the Czech Parliament. Politicians, media and industry representatives are being invited again to discuss possible ways of implementing a content rating system amending Czech media law to match the requirements of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive adopted in December 2007.

Such a conference shall form the starting point of a systematic debate leading to the adoption of a new more relevant law reflecting actual developments in the sphere of audio-visual media services.