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Klaus Unterberger, Head of Public Value Competence Center #101 The question is not, "What's coming?" but rather, "What could be?!" Just imagine: in 2040, society has changed fundamentally. How does the digital media world work, what has become of the ORF? After a series of existence-threatening pandemics and subsequent social crises, the European republic has agreed on a public welfare-oriented organization and financing of its public media structure still in its founding year 2025. In 2026, the EPN, the "European Public Network," is founded, a digital platform as the infrastructure of all public media systems in Europe, providing basic media services for all citizens and at the same time creating a non-commercial public communication space, a "public open space." The new media and communication platform is an alliance of Europe's public broadcasters, non-commercial regional and local media in cooperation with universities, schools, public educational institutions, archives and museums, the publicly funded cultural and creative sector, the public health sector, public institutions and municipal bodies, and civil society. This provides European citizens with basic information relevant to their civic, social, societal and cultural lives on EPN's multimedia playout channels. A freely accessible, barrier-free inclusive public discourse space is created, enabling social communication and interaction as a prerequisite for the success of democratic societies. All content conveyed by EPN is subject to strict and transparent quality control based on consensual public values. Central quality criteria have been established for this purpose: competence, trustworthiness, verifiability, inclusion, diversity and orientation towards the common good. A Code of Conduct excludes negative effects such as misinformation, propaganda, hate speech or gross violations of journalistic due diligence. Investigative, critical quality journalism is thus not only promoted, but is also given the status of a trustworthy news source that media users can rely on. In Austria, the ÖMP, the "Public Media Platform" (as part of the "European Public Network," formerly ORF) has been providing publicly verifiable multimedia media services since 2027 on the basis of a public service atlas discussed and adopted by the Austrian Media Convention in 2025-2026. Like EPN at the European level, ÖMP collects, produces and curates relevant information in all relevant genres, which it offers on a multimedia platform. Its independence from commercial as well as party or governmental political influences is ensured by control and management structures that provide for mandatory public hearings as well as transparency and competence provisions. This prevents party and government representatives, as well as economic lobbies, from gaining automatic majorities through non-transparent agreements and thus being able to intervene without restraint in terms of content and personnel. With the founding of the EPN, Europe has made itself independent of the global data companies and oligarchic regimes that will dominate until 2025 and that will have abused the Internet by then for their business models, spying on privacy and comprehensive surveillance. What no one thought possible in 2021 has come to pass in 2040: Europe now has a public, transparent, and quality-controlled media structure and an open discourse space that gives the term "social media" a new, democratic, and public-spirited meaning.