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

eproduction. The Compendium (ERICarts/Council of Europe 2005) recorded theintroduction of anti-piracy measures in almostall countries in Europe, as the enforcementof the IPR regulations is always linked withthe fight against piracy. Piracy has becomea main focus of the debate about IPRprimarily because of the interest of mediaconglomerates which have from the early1990s successfully penetrated the markets ofthe transition countries.92 Evaluation of these programmesincluded all member states and not only thenew ones.97 The proposed Services Directive, knownfor a while as Bolkenstein after former Dutchcommissioner Frits Bolkenstein, was widelydebated in 2004 and 2005. It was temporarilywithdrawn after fierce opposition of some EUmember countries, EU parliamentarians andcivil society. This legislation had proposedopening up Europe’s service sector formore competition. It was similar to GeneralAgreement on Trade in Services (GATS),which seeks to liberalize services on a globalscale. The services directive had a very vaguereference to exclusion of `public services’,including education, public health or cultureand audio-visual. [Late note: a watered downversion of the directive was finally passed bythe European Parliament in February 2006.]93 Such as Arnoud Gerritse decision of theEuropean Court of Justice (2003, C-234/01),Matthias Hoffmann (2003, C-144/00), orBarry Banks’ case against the Théâtre royalede la monnaie94 See: http://www.allarts.nl/artikelen/2003/Gerritse%20-%20decision.pdf95 Even though Article 87, which refers toculture, indicates that competition policy canhave an impact on culture and was the reasonwhy culture was made an exception in theTreaty of the European Union itself.96 After Berlin, a second meeting tookplace in Paris in May 2005; the third one wasin Budapest in November 2005.[Late note – April 2006: Granada.]98 For example, this is especially clear indiscussing the competitiveness of culturalindustries or trade in cultural goods andservices; member states have already givenup their sovereign rights to negotiate theseissues internationally and transferred theirresponsibilities to the European Commission.99 See: http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=11281&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html100 From certain statements of theCommissioner for Information Society andMedia, Viviane Redding, this division canalso be interpreted differently. Redding hasexpressed her conviction that this shift ofcompetences will permit the Commissionto deal with audio-visual field in a moresystematic way. However, this is possibleonly if it explicitly bypasses any reference to88Notes