New York Times
By ALAN RIDING
PARIS, Feb. 4 — During the countdown to the last
global free trade accord in 1994, an outspoken group
of French movie producers, directors and actors scored
an impressive victory over Hollywood when cinema and
other forms of audiovisual entertainment were excluded
from the agreement. The compromise became known as the
"cultural exception," a term that, in France at least,
quickly assumed the patriotic resonance of the opening
line of "The Marseillaise." Advertisement
What it meant in practice was that France — and any
other country that opted for the cultural exception —
could favor its movie, television and radio industries
with subsidies and minimize foreign competition
through quotas. Such protectionism was necessary, it
was argued, to prevent Hollywood and a handful of
international media giants from imposing their will on
the global entertainment market and wiping out all
expressions of local culture.
Now alarm bells are again ringing. The World Trade
Organization has started negotiations on trade in
services, and the United States, Japan and a handful
of other countries are eager to reopen the cultural
exception debate. But this time the French are no
longer alone.
This week, with the support of France and Canada,
representatives of professional cultural organizations
from 35 countries met at the Louvre to campaign for
preservation of the cultural exception and to promote
adoption of a global convention on cultural diversity
by Unesco as a way to remove culture from the World
Trade Organization.
As a measure of the political power of France's arts
elite, the three-day meeting was opened on Sunday by
France's culture minister, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, and
by Viviane Reding, the European Union's commissioner
for education and culture. The entire gathering then
went to the Élysée Palace, where President Jacques
Chirac spoke to the participants and leading movie
directors, actors and writers and strongly endorsed
the meeting's objectives.
But he warned that a new battle lay ahead. "With the
opening of a round of international trade
negotiations," he said, "the champions of unlimited
trade liberalization are once again lining up against
those who believe that creative works cannot be
reduced to the rank of ordinary merchandise."
Mr. Chirac also threw France's weight behind having a
convention on cultural diversity.
The meeting at the Louvre highlighted the immense
obstacles to taming an American audiovisual industry
that already dominates much of the globe. For
instance, American productions regularly account for
85 percent of movie audiences worldwide. And in
audiovisual trade in 2000 with just the European
Union, the United States had an $8.1 billion surplus,
divided equally between movies and television rights.
The current round of negotiations, named after Doha,
Qatar, where it began in November 2001, is already
well advanced. Last June World Trade Organization
members filed requests for trade liberalization by
other countries or groups of countries. (The 15-member
European Union negotiates as a bloc.) By March 31
members must respond with offers of liberalization.
And in theory, a consensus will emerge before the
deadline, Jan. 1, 2005.
On the audiovisual sector, one of dozens of trade
topics covered by the Doha round, the United States
has requested what it called a standstill, that is, no
expansion of the cultural exception, a move that in
practice would bring new Internet-related audiovisual
activities into the negotiations. The likely response
of the European Union and Canada next month will be to
offer nothing in this area in the hope of keeping the
entire audiovisual sector off the table.
Professional arts organizations in many other
countries, however, are at loggerheads with
governments that are willing to make concessions on
audiovisual matters in exchange for gains in other
trade areas. Further, the United States continues to
negotiate bilateral and regional trade accords that
often embrace the audiovisual sector, thus opening new
markets for American movies and television shows.
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture
Association of America, who has long experience with
this issue, acknowledged the opportunities offered by
bilateral agreements but insisted that audiovisual
questions should nonetheless be debated by the World
Trade Organization.
"There is enough flexibility in the W.T.O. for
countries to enact policies that have cultural
diversity as a goal," he said in a telephone interview
from Washington. "Take subsidies. We don't oppose
subsidies. This is one of the best ways of supporting
culture. The French pour $400 million into the movie
industry every year. We're not opposed."
But he said some aspects of French policies were
unfair. For every ticket sold at a French movie
theater, a small percentage of the income is channeled
into French film production. "So if American films
sell 60 percent of tickets, we're paying 60 percent of
the production subsidy," he said, "but we have no
access to that subsidy."
Thanks to a wide range of government supports, France
has a flourishing movie industry, while film
production in the rest of Europe is stagnating. In
Spain, for instance, domestic films accounted for just
12.5 percent of the 2002 box office, compared with 70
percent for American movies. And in many countries the
domestic share was still smaller.
But in seeking to use a convention on cultural
diversity to move the debate from the World Trade
Organization to Unesco, France and Canada seem certain
to face opposition, not least from the United States,
which last year announced that it would return to
Unesco after an 18-year absence.
"I think it's fair to say we'd oppose it," Mr. Valenti
said. "If all sectors are negotiated in the W.T.O.,
why single out one sector? Once you do that, the whole
system unravels."
Even if approved, a convention on cultural diversity
could not override existing commitments made through
the World Trade Organization.
For France and Canada and their supporters, however,
the proposed convention offers an opportunity to raise
the stakes in the cultural debate. And for those in
France's movie world, this is reassuring. Nine years
ago they had to take to the streets to defend their
interests. This week they seemed happy to applaud Mr.
Chirac.
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