Cultural Diversity and EU 2020 - Presentation Philippe Kern at ... - KEA

net importer of content and a large number of European countries are adopting measures to protect
their local cultural industries (in particular audiovisual).
Internationally the market share of European content (music or film) is less than 5% in the USA (it is the
European continent that invented cinema, fiction in literature and classical music). Less than 3% of
books published in the US are translations from non English language. European national content
hardly circulates in Europe. Despite the existence of the Media funding programme over the last 20
years, the market share of non-national European films is less than 8%.
It can be concluded that despite Europe, Europeans do not seem interested in the cultural content of
their neighbours or (more likely) that nothing much is being done to stimulate a market demand for
those products. Globalisation is accelerating this trend and the long tail has not yet occurred to the
extent that we can hope for more non-mainstream content on the Internet. The content industry
remains hit driven.
One may argue that cultural indifference is leading a founding member of the EU to the verge of
breaking up (Belgium).
European cultural industries are often marginalized on the world stage because of market and linguistic
fragmentation. The priority for European industry is to create scale in order to be able to fund
international productions with international potential or worldwide marketing campaigns. Scale is also
required to negotiate better deals with distribution platforms that operate internationally, in particular
for SMEs. The single market objective should be used as a tool for achieving scale. However there are
two opposing visions on the single market:
- A vision where Europe is simply a market for world culture.
- Or where Europe is a distinctive space nurturing diversity of expressions.
The reconciliation of single market objectives with cultural diversity remains an important challenge.
It should be added that culture benefits from a regime of regulatory exceptions:
o Copyright is protected from the full application of the principle of free movement of
goods.
o In competition policy ( State Aid is justified for cultural reasons – art 107(d))
o Some cultural products and services benefit from a specific VAT regime (VAT directive)
o State support to cultural industries is shielded from international trade law following the
adoption of the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity.
o AV quotas may limit the free flow of AV programmes on networks (AV Media services
Directive).
In a recent study for DG INFSO on multi-territory licensing and VOD we have highlighted attempts by the
EU regulator to mitigate the impact of this derogatory regime. Culture is often perceived as disruptive to
the single market and competition principles. Examples of attempts to curtail this regime of exceptions
are:
- Country of origin principle.
- Mandatory collective licensing (cable retransmission) to facilitate licensing
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