Over 5.000 directors, writers, actors, technicians and other professionals including famous names like Stephen Frears, David Lynch and Harvey Weinstein have signed a petition to stop the trade negotiations from including the possible dismantling of the “cultural exception” which allows European governments to support their film industries.

Smaller countries like those in Central and Eastern Europe which rely heavily on government subsidies to fund their film industries could be especially hard hit as the “cultural exception,” a hard won part of the Gatt Trade and Tariff agreements in the 1990’s, protects Europe’s cultural diversity and its cultural industries.

But now a draft of the US EU Trade Talks due to begin soon have once again placed the “cultural exception” on the negotiating table.

The European audiovisual sector has mobilized to call for the culture to be explicitly excluded from the negotiating mandate given by member States to the European Commission and delivered a petition with over 5000 signatures in Cannes to the Commissioner in charge of Culture, Androula Vassilou in presence of the head of the Culture Committee of the EU Doris Pack.

 

Signatures of the online petition:

https://www.lapetition.be/en-ligne/The-cultural-exception-is-non-negotiable-12826.html