As President of
FERA, representing thousands of European film and television directors, British
director Sir Alan Parker has written today [25.04.2013] to President Barroso seeking clear
justification for the Commission’s refusal to insist on the cultural exception in the forthcoming trade negotiations.
In his
letter, Sir Alan congratulates the Commission on the project for talks, which could
bring long term economic gains, and thanks Commissioners de Grucht and Vassiliou
for their reassurances, but is nevertheless asking for solid guarantees that
the TTIP negotiating mandate will be strengthened by mid June. European systems
of audiovisual support must not be traded away, now or inthe future, he argues,
and future programmes such as Creative Europe must be absoutely free to develope
despite any EU-US trade agreement.
Deploying widely
accepted arguments on the 2005 UNESCOConvention on the Diversity of Cultural Expression, and the Lisbon Treaty, Sir
Alan points out that, due to the Subsidiarity principle, it may in fact be
illegal to for the Commission make concessions that might prejudice European cultural
aid schemes.
His letter also draws attention to the economic importance of the cultural
industries. ”Losing or weakening audiovisual support schemes as part of a trade
deal would cause not only cultural but economic damage, and certain loss of employment,”
he argues.
Sir Alan asks
for a face to
face meeting with the Commission President in the next few weeks to receive the cast iron
assurances that European directors are seeking.
Cosignatories
of the letter are the Creative Council of FERA: Marco Bellocchio, Claire Denis,
Agnieszka Holland, Neil Jordan and István Szabó.
FERA - Founded in 1980, the Federation of European Film Directors contains 37 directors’
associations from 29 countries. It speaks for approximately 20,000 European
screen directors, representing their cultural, creative and economic interests
both at the national and European level. www.filmdirectors.eu
