Brussels, 14/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - Unveiling the new state aid rules for films and audiovisual works to reporters on Thursday 14 November (see EUROPE 10962), EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia provided extra information on the aims of the reform and the new state aid eligibility criteria.
The commissioner said that the new rules fully respected the principles of cultural exception and subsidiarity for the film and audiovisual sector, leaving member states free to decide to themselves which cultural content the new rules would apply to, but the Commission wants a common framework to strike a good balance between the desire to preserve exceptions on the grounds of national culture and the desire to make audiovisual creation a European fact of life that makes use of the single market. To this end, the Commission has taken account of the wide variety of funding available, like tax credits and public subsidies, in the member states to help the film industry, which is included in the new system of aid for all phases of creation of an audiovisual work (see EUROPE 10962), along with aid for cinemas, but not including audiovisual games, which are not considered cultural products.
In terms of how the aid is granted, Almunia said that the Commission had never challenged member states' requiring a section of the budget for a film to be spent in its own country, but says that this “territorialisation” requirement should be proportionate to the aim of safeguarding national expertise. The Commission's guidelines put a cap on national aid of 50% of film production costs, raising this to 60% for involving several countries in order to encourage multinational films. The Commission is continuing, however, with the 80% cap on production costs for “difficult” films, like short films, first films and art-house films or others that are difficult to sell. Member states may require up to 100% of state aid to be spent in the country of origin and will be allowed to make the option of receiving aid conditional upon up to 50% of the production costs being incurred in their country. By combining the aid intensity criterion and the territorialisation criterion, up to 80% of production costs may be required to be spent in the country of origin, as also applies under the old guidelines. The commissioner said that he would be suggesting that a range of aid for the cinema industry should be exempt from the prior notification requirement under the new general state aid exemption regulation.
France is the key defender of cultural exception and the fact that member states should be allowed to require that most of the aid is spent in the home country in order to generate fair returns for the local film industry, and in a press release, French culture minister Aurélie Filipetti welcomed the fact that cultural exceptions have been included in the Commission's guidelines. (FG/transl.fl)