29/11/2012 - The FFA and CNC are demanding that the Commission adapt competition rules to the needs of the film industry

The French National Film and Moving Image Centre (CNC) and the German Federal Film Board (FFA) yesterday published a common press release demanding that the European Commission keep the current rules for territorialised aid to film production, until a unanimous solution in reached within the European Union.

On the occasion of the 10th German-French Film Rendez-Vous currently being held in Berlin, Eric Garandeau (photo - head of the CNC) and Peter Dinges (director-general of the FFA) stressed that more flexibility and pragmatism is required when applying the European Union’s competition law to the cultural sector. "It is essential to adapt competition rules to the needs of the film industry, and not the opposite," they stated.

According to the CNC and the FFA, "Restricting and harmonising state aid systems as done by the European Commission do not favour cultural diversity, but calls into question national and European objectives both culturally and economically. In the end, it’s the actual existence of many national and regional systems of aid to cinema that is threatened, and this has already caused increasing lack of confidence among producers and rendered vulnerable jobs in the sector. The quantity, quality, and diversity of European film production will be affected as a whole if a satisfying solution is not found rapidly.”

In his speech in Berlin, Eric Garandeau clearly detailed his analysis: "Media chronology, state aid, and relevant taxes including for internet subscriptions, are the three levers that allow European films to be funded and to resist the stream roller that is American cinema in this time of digitisation and globalisation. Unfortunately, the European Commission seems committed to fighting them, methodically, thinking that they represent obstacles to competition and to completing the single market. Except that, by repeatedly thinking solutions are problems, the Commission will end up creating real problems: Without its territorialised state aids and without media chronology, there will soon no longer be films, and therefore no market, and Europe will be a zone to dump surplus American film stock..."

(Translated from French)