Why we need European cultural policies: the impact of EU ...

inherited problems and challenges of overcoming the transition crisis, there has been pressureto reduce public spending, to privatize state-owned companies and to undertake other reformsnecessary to achieve a functioning market economy.It is still too early to see many specific changes in cultural policies that have resulted from theeconomic reforms and there have been very few areas in which there have been explicit requestsfor reforms in the cultural field. To sum up: there is still almost no information about the effects ofthe enlargement on culture, other than the assessment of the funding programmes.92General conclusions from the existing literature and from the responses to the questionnaireshow that there has been, however, an impact of some kind on cultural policies: sometimespositive, sometimes negative.Cultural changes at several levelsGenerally speaking, changes influenced by accession to the EU have been and are taking placeat two levels.First, accession has required in some areas, direct reform of national cultural policy. These havebeen visible and easy to assess, as with audio-visual or copyright policy. In these circumstances,because the influence of accession has been either exclusively focussed on a cultural topic,or because certain regulations could have been predicted to impinge on cultural policies, thisinfluence has in some ways taken the concerns of the cultural sector into consideration. However,even in those examples, the short-term effects of the reforms may have been positive or negative;it is unlikely that there could ever have been a `one-size-fits-all’ solution.Indirect changes were, however, more difficult to identify and assess. Any impact they may havehad – whether positive or negative – has lagged behind the more direct reforms. They hardly tookaccount of the concerns of the cultural sector, and have been able to override the principle ofsubsidiarity or the exclusion of the cultural field from harmonization.Evidence from the questionnaireThe questionnaire’s results pointed to some of those direct and indirect changes in cultural policy,which occurred in the new member states or is taking place now in the candidate countries, thatis, those which are in the process of negotiating to join.Those which were in some ways easiest to identify were the audio-visual sector and intellectualproperty rights (IPR), as they were both covered by the acquis communautaire and there wereincentives and guidelines for new member states and some technical assistance. It was clear,however, that even here, the impact of accession to the EU could not be separated from thegeneral reforms which ensued as these countries transformed themselves in the wake of the fall ofcommunism. For example, to assess the impact of accession in the field of IPR was complicatedby the fact that the transition countries were already having to align their legislation with otherinternational regulations from WIPO and the WTO. Nevertheless, there was data available.Preliminary assessment of the impact of EU enlargement63