Resolutions on aid to cinema and fixed price for books confirm the tendency towards defending specific nature of culture

Brussels, 24/11/2000 (Agence Europe) - Marked by the agreement secured on the new aid programme to the audiovisual sector "Media Plus" (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.9), Thursday's Culture Council was also an occasion to reassure Member States as to the perennial nature of certain major aspects of their cultural policies: funding of public television, aid to the cinema sector and, for some, the fixing of book prices.

• National aid to the cinema and audiovisual sector. The Council adopted a resolution by which it emphasises that aid to the cinema and audiovisual sector was one of the main means of ensuring cultural diversity and may contribute to the emergence of a European audiovisual market. It reaffirms the need to step up the legal security of these provisions, urging the European Commission to present the state of play in its reflection as soon as possible and, whatever, by the end of 2001. The European Commissioner for culture, Viviane Reding, announced that the European Executive would be publishing a Green Paper, between now and March, on certain legal aspects linked to the cinema, that would be followed, in the second half of the year, by a communication.

The European Commission is for now proceeding with the examination of all systems of national aid (those already examined have all been approved), and Ms. Reding stressed that high-intensity aid was admissible for difficult and low budget films, as well as any film to emerge from an area of limited linguistic or cultural influence.

• Application of national systems for the setting of book prices. The Council adopted a resolution through which it invited the Commission to "take into account, in the application of its rules in terms of competition and the free movement of goods, the particular cultural value of books and there importance in the promotion of cultural diversity, as well as the trans-national dimension of the book market", notably in the homogenous multilingual areas. It also calls "to pay special attention, during the examination of regulations and national agreements relating to the fixed prices for books: - to the risk of the development of loopholes, - the consequences of the development of electronic commerce, - the issues linked to imports between countries practising a fix book price system". This resolution enables use to reiterate that the principal of subsidiarity remains complete and that it is important to guarantee the national systems for book prices and their effective application" commented the session President Mrs Tasca.

The debate showed that any European harmonisation is out of the question, not only for lack of a legal basis, but also because several Member States feel that a fixed price system is not desirable", however underlined the spokesperson for Mr Reding, "and the Commissioner asked Ministers not to reduce the book policy to a debate on fixed prices, but to think of interventions at other levels such as education, the support for authors and publishers or thought over digital books".

• Future of public audiovisual service. The EU 15 want greater legal security for State aid to public television and mixed financing systems (public resources and advertising receipts). Mrs Reding indicated that several texts recently adopted by the European Commission (Communication on General Interest Services, Transparency Directive) have provided several details on this issue.

As the Commission has not yet decided whether it is necessary to publish the guidelines or not, it recalled that it is up to Member States to define the public service mission and the means of financing. "The Commission only intervenes at two levels: it ensures that public financing does not exceed what is necessary to fulfil the public service mission and, in the case of joint financing, that the result is not disproportionate distortion on the advertising market", explained the spokesperson. "The European Commission does not in principle object to the public service missions covering consumer public programmes and including the new technologies, an internet site, etc.".

The European Commission must still give its views on the complaints that it received from private television (from France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom) against public operators, for unfair competition. "This should be done by June 2001", said the spokesman.

Furthermore, the Council:

a) adopted a resolution calling for the architectural quality to be taken more into account in all the existing programmes and in EU policies; b) appointed its two representatives to the panel called upon to give its stance on "the culture capitals" for the years 2005-2019: - French national Bernard Faivre d'Arcier and Antonio Mega Ferreira, from Portugal; c) noted a report by the Presidency on the follow-up to the e-Europe action plan in the cultural field and the results of two seminars on audiovisual issues recently organised with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and those of the Mediterranean rim.