Brussels, 13/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - France, which is keen to exclude audiovisual services from the Commission's negotiating mandate, is threatening to block the launch of transatlantic talks.
The day before European trade ministers gather in Luxembourg on 14 June, when the mandate to be given to the Commission for negotiating a free-trade agreement with the United States is to be validated by consensus, France is sticking to its guns to keep the audiovisual sector out of the mandate. Speaking before the French National Assembly on 12 June, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that France was opposed to opening talks with the United States if culture and the culture industry are not protected and are not kept out of the mandate. Paris will, if necessary, use its “right of political veto”. The French Assembly voted unanimously in favour of a resolution demanding the exclusion of films and digital media.
France is ignoring the pressure being cranked up by the United Kingdom, which is keen to present an unrestricted European negotiating mandate to US President Barack Obama at the G8 in Lough Erne on 17 and 18 June. It is threatening to not validate the mandate and thus to delay the formal launch of talks scheduled for July. This is despite the guarantees given by the Commission on sensitive issues, such as the question of GMOs, hormone-treated beef, or defence, and on strict support for Europe's chief negotiator, Commissioner De Gucht - and also despite the red lines linked to the inclusion of audiovisual services in the mandate in order to safeguard cultural diversity, as expressed by the European Commission and the Irish Presidency of the EU Council, for the safeguarding of broadcasting quotas, subsidies and tax incentives, and to have the possibility for the EU and its member states to adjust legislation to protect the digital environment.
France fears that the United States will wish to obtain specific rules for new audiovisual services, such as video on demand, linking them to new technologies rather than to audiovisual. It also wants to ensure that future technologies in the cultural field, such as on-line content, is protected from the giants of the American film industry.
Although many of the 14 countries that signed, mid-May, the letter by European culture ministers demanding that audiovisual services be excluded, have distanced themselves from France, France is convinced it is not on its own. Paris has the support of Greece, Hungary and Belgium. Poland, Italy, Belgium, Romania, Austria, and others, have expressed concern, says French Trade Minister Nicole Bricq, recognising, nonetheless ,that they are less determined than France. Spain and Italy, which share France's reserves in essence, do not wish to delay the process. Neither does Germany, where the Bundesrat voted early June for audiovisual services to be excluded.
The Commission for its part does not wish to rule out any sector from the talks for fear that the United States will refuse to negotiate in sectors where Europe has significant interests, such as financial regulation, maritime and air transport and public procurement. (EH/transl.jl)