Brussels, 02/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - In the run-up to the drafting of a report on the legal aspects of producing and distributing broadcasting and cinema, the European Parliament's Culture Committee organised a public hearing in Brussels on 26 March with representatives from FERA (Federation of European Film Producers) and MAP (Anti Broadcasting Pirating Movement). The FERA delegation was made up of its President, Spanish film director Manual Gutierrez Aragon, its former President Italian film director Francesco 'Citto' Maselli and its Secretary General, Belgo-Portuguese film director Joao Correa. MAP was represented by the Vice-President of the actors federation Luis Mendo; The hearing was chaired by Michel Rocard, President of the Culture Committee and was attended by the President of the Socialist group, Enrique Baron and two representatives of Directorate-General for Education and Culture at the European Commission, Jean-Michel Baer and Jean-Eric de Cockborne.
By attending the hearing, the FERA representatives aimed to see how, with the EP's aid, the aid scheme for European cinema would be maintained, a system of grants and quotas. Mr Gutierrez Aragon said that FERA favoured an open market that would allow all cultures and all styles to express themselves. Insofar as the market does not enable this to happen, aid schemes are needed for the industry at both national and European level. He stressed the importance of creators in Europe and called on MEPs to be bold in their intervention because at the gates of Europe there were now countries waiting whose film makers hoped to find a single audiovisual continent in the EU. Mr Correa warned against the temptation of abandoning aid policies because of the success of European cinema, pointing out that this success was the fruit of long-term policies against a backdrop of extremely vicious international competition. He also raised the issue of vertical and horizontal monopolisation in the media that diminished the space for creation and expression by sapping independent film producers and introducing uniformity in film supply. The renowned Italian film director Francesco Maselli said he was "disappointed" with the comments in the September 2001 cinema communication which did no more than agree to study various measures contained in FERA's draft directive (legal depositing and public register of films), deferring the important issues (namely defining European works and independent films and programmes) to when the television without frontiers directive is reviewed. Commissioner Viviane Reding has announced that she will be putting forward "initial proposals" for the review of the television without frontiers directive for the 23 May Culture Council (see EUROPE of 19 January, p.13). Mr Maselli called on the Commission and EP to ensure that the concerns of European creators were discussed, particularly improving the circulation of non-national European works and the setting up of measures to ensure European films found a place on the distribution networks.
The MAP representative Luis Mendo gave statistics of audiovisual pirating (in Spain, for example, around 30% of CDs were pirated, leading to unpaid copyright and taxes) adding that production clearly suffered greatly from this lost revenue and therefore called for the setting up of a pirating monitoring centre for the phenomenon, which is likely to get worse when the candidate countries join the EU.
Responding to these comments, Michel Rocard pointed out the imbalance in the Treaty's legal bases depending on the subject. The European Commission is authorised to impose competition in all sectors in Europe but cinema aid has to get a derogation from the competition rules if it is to survive. He came out in favour of a cinema directive that clearly sets out that competition rules do not apply to the weakest film directors and operators. Mr Rocard felt that the European Parliament's Culture Committee should put forward proposals in this connection (noting that some sectors of culture are not covered by the general competition rules) for the Convention on the Future of Europe. Michel Rocard and Geneviève Fraisse (GUE/NGL, France) called for an international instrument for cultural diversity to be set up to defend the notion of cultural as an exception to the WTO rules. Doris Pack (EPP-ED, Germany), Barbara O'Toole (PES, UK) and Raina Echerer (Greens/EFA, Austria) said that that better legal protection was needed, with a better definition of private copying and effective sanctions.