Brussels, 07/05/2003 (Agence Europe) - At its meeting in Brussels on 6 May, the broadcasting section of the Culture Council reached agreement on the proposal by Commissioner Viviane Reding to extend until the end of 2006 MEDIA-Training (programme for training professionals in the European audio-visual programme industry) and MEDIA-Plus (programme to encourage the development, distribution and promotion of European audio-visual matter) which had been due to expire at the end of December 2005. They agreed to increase the budget for the two programmes, by EUR 7.4 million for MEDIA-Training and around EUR 85.6 million for MEDIA-Plus. The Council also took note of a request by France for VAT to be reduced for records and audio-cassettes. France made this request for the first time at the 11/12 November 2002 Council. It wants the Council to ensure that its request is considered at some point in 2003.
As for the Culture Council proper, it adopted a resolution on archives in the Member States in which it calls on the Commission to: 1) convene a group of experts representative also of acceding countries, appointed on the proposal of the relevant national authorities, to address the situation of the public archives in the EU Member States and promote concrete activities such as the encouragement of appropriate measures to prevent damage to archives through catastrophes like flooding; and 2) to submit a report to the Council before the middle of 2004 on the work of this group of experts, including guidelines for increased cooperation in the future on archives at the European level. Denmark called on the EU's culture ministers to take part in the ASEM conferences on Cultures and Civilisations (to be held in Beijing on 10/11 June 2003) and it informed the ministers that the conference had been postponed to an unspecified date and would now be held in some other location because of the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in China and surrounding countries. (See yesterday's Europe, pages 10 to 12, on these Councils.)