19/03/2013 - The Minister of Culture sounds the alarm regarding the commercial negotiations between the European Union and the United States, seeing it as a threat to cultural exception

"Cultural exception" is a concept of international law, which enables culture to become an exception in international treaties. Aurélie Filippetti (photo), French Minister of Culture, declared: “It is on this basis that an audiovisual and cinematographic industry has developed in Europe; it lies at the heart of its cultural identity and is a major asset for growth and employment".

President François Hollande supported the Minister's argument, even declaring on the same day in Brussels that the audiovisual sector should “stay out of the mandate of negotiations for a free trade treaty between the European Union and the United States".

The French Coalition for Cultural Diversity also shares these concerns regarding the project of a mandate for negotiations adopted by the European Commission last week. It would seem that the College of Commissioners in charge of this nevertheless sees the audiovisual sector as part of the free trade agreement, thus bringing potential liberalization of the sector in the future. Androulla Vassiliou, the commissioner in charge of Culture, and Michel Barnier, commissioner for the Interior Market, have expressed their disagreement with this eventuality.

It should also be pointed out that the European Union ratified the UNESCO convention for the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions, while the United States was one of the only countries to have voted against it. The audiovisual industry is the United States' second largest export market. To include the audiovisual sector in this agreement could mean a decrease in all the funding policies for European audiovisual and cinematographic creation.

Aurélie Filippetti declared: “France is not at all alone in defending cultural exception. We simply wish that the European Union would comply with its established practice of the last twenty years. In all commercial negotiations, it has always excluded all types of liberalization commitments concerning audiovisual services". The Irish President, Michael Higgins, actually recently declared at the UNESCO that he remained an advocate of cultural exception and of cultural space, which is, from his point of view, “wider than an economic arena".

The cycle of negotiations between the European Union and the United States should start this summer and could last two years before a free trade agreement would be reached. The European Commissioner for Commerce, Karel de Gucht, is in charge of the negotiations’ mandate, which must still be approved by the member states. 

(Translated from French)