Battle looms over protection for EU films

Date: 15/07/1999

By Peter Chapman

THE Finnish presidency is set to ignite the debate over the future of hard-won trade concessions which protect the EU's beleaguered film and television industry from imported US 'culture'.

Helsinki has put the issue top of the agenda for next week's informal meeting of Union culture ministers in Savonlinna.

The move comes as Union negotiators continue to lay the groundwork for the World Trade Organisation's Millennium Round talks, which are due to be launched at a ministerial meeting in Seattle in November.

Under a deal agreed in 1993 in the closing stages of the Uruguay Round of global trade negotiations, the EU was given the right to limit free trade in audio-visual services on "cultural" grounds such as the protection of "linguistic diversity".

This deal, secured largely as a result of fierce last-minute French lobbying, allowed the Union to continue with policies to protect its domestic industry such as the legislation which limits broadcasts of foreign films by EU television stations to 50% or less "where practicable".

The US reluctantly agreed to the deal at the 11th hour to prevent arguments over what was then a relatively small sector from scuppering the whole trade accord. But it is certain to be a central issue in the coming round given the explosion in audio-visual services since 1993.

Finnish officials acknowledge that there will be intense pressure from some EU member states, particularly France, to preserve these limits on trade in audio-visual services at all costs - even if they jeopardise other Union efforts to open up foreign markets during the WTO talks.

They also concede that the proposed new European Commission line-up unveiled last week by President-designate Romano Prodi, in which Frenchman Pascal Lamy has been put in charge of trade policy, could add to the pressure for a tough stand.

But they argue that the Union should not set out a firm negotiating position on the issue until member states' culture ministers have conducted a thorough and level-headed examination of the facts.

"The main purpose of these discussions is to be better informed and better prepared than we were eight years ago when negotiations began on the GATT deal," said one Helsinki source.

The emergence of electronic media has given the Union's audio-visual sector massive potential new markets and has led some to question the need for policies such as the quota scheme. But others claim the new media simply encourage broadcasters to import cheap US movies.

"We now have a margin of manoeuvre for negotiations on the audio-visual sector and support mechanisms," said an aide to outgoing Culture Commissioner Marcelino Oreja. "The question now is do member states and the Commission wish in the future to be able to have specific regulations aimed at cultural diversity or are they ready to abandon it?"