[Comment] Cultural diversity - an obstacle to the EU single market?
RUTH HIERONYMI
12.02.2008 @ 07:06 CET
EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - "Unity in Diversity" is the slogan of the European Union. We Europeans are proud of our different cultures. They are our roots and our identity.
At the same time, cultural and creative content are both cultural and economic goods. Cultural diversity and its fantastic richness of creative content are also the source of successful European creative industries and thus a crucial driver for the European economy.
"Legislation on content online needs to strike a careful balance between cultural and economic requirements" (Photo: Sandrine Muscarella)
It is for this reason that cultural industries have been singled out in the Lisbon strategy for employment and growth, but legislation covering online content needs to strike a careful balance between cultural requirements and economic requirements.
Up until now, culture fell within the competences of the member states and was firmly separated from EU single market law and international trade law, even though the US has put pressure on Europe to include audiovisual services in the WTO regime since the beginning of the GATS negotiations in 1994.
Audiovisual services have been excluded from this purely economic international legal framework until today.
The debate takes a new turn
Recent technological developments have forced this debate to take a new turn. As a result of digital and online technologies, cultural and audiovisual content can be transferred easily across borders - which also means that this content gains in importance as an economic good.
However, let it not be forgotten that these creative and cultural goods can only flourish and maintain their high quality and range of types of content if cultural diversity is expressively respected by law. including different forms of public and private support.
If cultural diversity were to fall more and more under commercial law, the legal framework for the protection of cultural diversity will be regarded more and more as an obstacle to the single market.
Such a process is already underway in the EU, as shown by the commission's recommendation of 18 May 2005 on "collective cross-border management of copyright and related rights for legitimate online music services". The decision in the case against the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) now lies with competition commissioner Neelie Kroes.
Anticipating this development, the UNESCO convention on the "Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions" was negotiated in 2005 and entered into force in March 2007.
Its objective is to strengthen culture policy to promote diversity in the face of the threat from commercial law at the national and international level.
Poorly implemented in EU legislation
It is not acceptable that that the UNESCO convention has been poorly implemented in EU legislation up to now, especially since the commission participated in the negotiations.
In a May 2007 commission communication, "A European agenda for culture in a globalising world", the application of the UNESCO convention is only mentioned in terms of relations with countries beyond the EU.
Cultural relations and trade with non-EU countires is very important, but the communication forgets that the convention should also be applied to EU law. This very narrow application has since been criticised in the Culture Committee of the European Parliament.
However, it seems that the Council of the European Union has not even noticed the meaning of this exemption by the commission in its resolution of 30 October 2007 and does not mention the dramatic changes that are under way for the cultural sector.
In order to obtain more clarification, I tabled a written question on the legal status of the UNESCO convention to culture commissioner Jan Figel. He responded by saying: "The community is duty-bound to implement the UNESCO convention when exercising the competences it enjoys in policy areas that are covered by the convention. According to Annex 1(b) of the Council Decision, these areas are: free movement of goods, persons, services and capital, competition, and the internal market, including intellectual property."
Respecting cultural diversity
Despite the position of commissioner Figel, in January of this year, the commission presented a communication on creative online content in the single market, covering online film, television, music, radio, games, publications, educational content and user-generated content.
The communication deals with important copyright issues such as DRM and piracy, but it is unacceptable that it does not take not into account measures that are necessary to respect cultural diversity as such.
Cultural diversity and the UNESCO Convention are not even mentioned!
As part of the communication, a consultation on how to proceed with a strategy on cultural content online has been launched.
Stakeholders in the creative sector are invited to answer the consultations questions until the end of February and thus have an excellent opportunity - which they should seize - to request the incorporation of the protection of cultural diversity in the context of content online.
I would heartily welcome every effort from the cultural sector to emphasise its importance.
Meanwhile, the Culture and Education Committee of the parliament will be following the implementation of the UNESCO convention very closely.
In order to clarify the status of the UNESCO convention and to obtain an overview of the needs of the sector, we are organising our own hearing at the end of February on the implementation of the convention.
We welcome all interested persons from the creative and cultural sector.
The hearing on the implementation of the UNESCO-Convention will take place in the Culture and Education Committee of the European Parliament on 27th February 2008
The author represents the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) in the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education
