Brussels, 14/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - Thirteen European culture ministers join French Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti in demanding that the audiovisual sector be excluded from the transatlantic negotiations.
On the initiative of France, the culture ministers from 13 European Union member states - Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain - signed a letter to the Irish Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers on 14 May, calling for “the constantly re-asserted position” of the EU regarding the cultural exception “to be fully maintained” in the trade negotiations with the United States. The EU “has always excluded audiovisual services, in the World Trade Organisation as well as bilateral talks, from any agreements on trade liberalisation”, the ministers recall. They stress that a whole policy of the EU and its member states would be compromised if the exclusion they are calling for was not guaranteed. The same goes for their capacity to choose and keep their laws and regulations in the face of economic and technological developments, they state.
Filippetti will argue for this common position at the meeting of European culture ministers in Brussels on 17 May, when they will hold an exchange of views on the transatlantic free trade talks. The Irish Presidency has been given until mid-June to tie up the Commission's draft negotiating mandate amended by the member states. The French initiative came to the fore the day after British Prime Minister David Cameron, when visiting Washington on Monday, called for all subjects and products to be negotiated between Brussels and Washington (see other article). (EH/transl.fl)