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Open Letter to Barroso about TPIP 2013

 

President José Manuel Barroso

European Commission

Berlaymont Building

Rue de la Loi 200

1049 Brussels

BELGIUM

 

 

Brussels, April 8^th 2013

To: Mr. President José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission

Cc:  Mrs. Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism, Sport, Media and Youth

Mr. Karel De Gucht, Commissioner for Trade

Mr. Michel Barnier, Commissioner for Internal Market and Services

 

Subject: Excluding cultural and audiovisual services from the mandate of the EC ahead of the negotiations on the EU-USA Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

 

Dear President Barroso,                                      

We, the undersigned board members of the European Platform on the Potential of Cultural and Creative Industries¹, turn to you as the President of the European Commission to express our concern with regards to the upcoming negotiations between the EU and the US on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

We have taken note of the draft negotiation mandate which was approved by the College of Commissioners on 12^th March, and are concerned by the fact that cultural and audiovisual services are not explicitly excluded from this mandate. 

Indeed, the draft mandate only mentions under ‘objectives’ that “the parties will not encourage trade or foreign direct investment by (…) relaxing (…) policies or legislation aimed at protecting and promoting cultural diversity”, and that “The agreement shall not contain provisions that would risk prejudicing the Union’s cultural and linguistic diversity, namely in the audio-visual sector”.

The platform on the potential of Cultural and Creative Industries feels strongly that cultural and audiovisual services should be explicitly excluded from the European Commission’s negotiating mandate, following the traditional ‘negative list’ approach.

Such exclusion would be in line with the Lisbon Treaty’s (Article 167, paragraph 4) requirement that the EU take culture into account in all its actions to foster intercultural respect and promote diversity and with previous trade agreements the EU negotiated with third countries.

The EU is also bound by the UNESCO Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions, which is now part of European Law. On the other hand, this Convention has not been ratified by the US.

The Convention allows the EU and its member states to design cultural policies which contribute to the development of vibrant and diverse cultural and creative sectors in the EU.

Today, the domination of the global market by the US cultural and creative actors is very clear. Figures published recently by the European Commission showed that the US audiovisual industry is in control of 54% of the global market, while Europe accounts for only 25,2% of it². In the music sector, US repertoire represents around 50% of all airplay and downloads in pan-European charts³.

Tomorrow, if the cultural and audiovisual services are not excluded from the TTIP negotiations, the imbalance could grow further to the detriment of Europe, in particular in the online environment.

As underlined by the European Commissionin its latest Communication on the matter⁴, Europe’s cultural and creative sectors:

• Account for up to 4.5% of EU’s GDP and 8.5 million jobs;

• Have on average a higher percentage of youth employment;

• Are in a strategic position to produce well-documented spillover effects in other industries;

• Are key elements in global competition and in the EU’s soft power.

The potential of Europe’s cultural and creative sectors is huge, and at a time when the EU is trying to further unlock their potential, the consequences of opening up the cultural and audiovisual markets to more liberalisation could have disastrous consequences on an economic, cultural and social level.

As you mentioned in a speech delivered in Vienna on 4^th April, “culture is the cement that binds Europe together”. In line with your commitment to “support (…) the cultural activities that generate new ideas, innovation and social cohesion”, we urge you to unambiguously support the exclusion of cultural and audiovisual services from the TTIP negotiations.

Moreover, it goes without saying that copyright is the basis for creativity and key for the sustainability of cultural and audiovisual sectors. Copyright is also acknowledged by the EU as the basis of creativity which is making an important contribution to European economic growth and jobs and to Europe’s unique cultural diversity. Negotiations with the US should therefore address this area by providing incentives to create and invest in the copyright sector. They should provide for adequate protection of copyright and the implementation of international treaties on intellectual property.

 

We kindly ask you to take this matter into consideration.

Yours sincerely,

On behalf of the European Platform on the Potential of Cultural and Creative Industries,

 

Footnotes:

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