Adress:
Skeppargatan 26,
114 52 Stockholm
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E-post: council@klys.se
Stockholm January 31 2003
Presentation
Conclusions
GATS and
cultural diversity
The
structure of GATS and its provisions in relation to culture
The
request/offer process
How
to guarantee that cultural diversity is protected in GATS and in other free
trade contexts?
KLYS – the Swedish Joint Committée for Artistic and Literary Professionals – is an umbrella organisation for national Swedish artist associations in different fields, such as visual arts, music, literature and theatre. Through its member organisations KLYS represents almost 30.000 Swedish artists. In its work KLYS focus on issues like cultural policies, copyrights, labour market and freedom of expression for artists.
KLYS is one of the founding members of the INCD – International Network for Cultural Diversity – which is an international network of non-governmental organisations in the cultural sector dedicated to countering the negative effects of globalisation on culture. The INCD was founded in Greece in 2000. The main purpose of the INCD is to safeguard cultural diversity between and within countries especially in the context of multilateral trade agreements such as the WTO/GATS. The INCD has a close and ongoing dialogue with the ministers of culture in the INCP- International Network for Cultural Policy.
In KLYS’ opinion the EC shall not undertake any commitments to liberalisations that can affect or distort cultural diversity within or between countries. The possibility to protect and develop national cultural policies must be ensured. We therefore urge the EC to maintain the position taken by the Council of the European Union in 1999 giving the European Commission the mandate to negotiate in the WTO in order to protect its member states’ current and future cultural policies.
Since cultural diversity might be affected by GATS provisions even though no commitments will be expressly undertaken in the cultural sector KLYS would like to emphasize the necessity of an international, legally binding instrument – a so called cultural convention – which can guarantee the protection of cultural diversity in international trade agreements. KLYS encourages the EC to push for the establishment of a new international agreement that can provide a permanent legal foundation for government measures that promote cultural diversity.
The liberalisation that the GATS is aiming at is above all an economic process. However the GATS is broad in scope and affects to a large extent other sectors of civil society such as the cultural sector. Globalisation has brought increasing access to the artistic creations of foreign artists and creators. But the increasing imbalanced trade exchange between countries is undermining local and traditional cultures and monopolising the market of many countries. The most obvious example of this phenomenon is in the audiovisual sector where films and TV-programs from the Anglo-Saxon world dominate the market of most countries. To counteract this, governments around the world intervene in the market to give support to local cultural expressions.
Production and distribution of cultural expressions have for a long time in all democratic societies been subsidized and supported by the state. Support schemes have developed within the scope of national cultural policies such as public support to theatre, music, visual arts and literature. Other exemples of public funding is financial support to the press, public service radio and television and support to the production/distribution of domestic films. In principle all these measures, to the extent they distort competition in trade in services, could fall within the scope of GATS.
Already, GATS places constraints on the ability of sovereign governments to implement cultural policies and programs. Proposals in the new round of liberalisation talks when negotiating GATS can only bring further restrictions on governmental measures that support cultural expressions and ensure cultural diversity. KLYS finds this development very dangerous and urges the EC to strongly resist pressure from the WTO countries regarding liberalisations that may affect the cultural sector.
Artistic expression is a fundamental human right. Each artistic expression is unique and an integral part of human societies. The fruits of artistic creation are more than conventional goods and services. Cultural diversity strengthens us all and must be maintained and promoted as an important part of sustainable development. Market forces alone cannot ensure cultural diversity at national and international levels.
The cultural sector comprises a broad spectrum of artistic expressions and activities such as visual arts, dance, theatre, book editing, periodicals, music production, film, television and digital media. Under the GATS, aspects of the process of artistic creation are considered as ‘services’, for example the work of the author, painter or the musician. But the physical embodiment of the artistic creation can also be viewed as a ‘good’. A magazine, book, compact disc and painting are all physical objects with mass and texture. Thus, there are substantial uncertainties on how different cultural activities and productions should be classified in multilateral free trade agreements.
The GATS is considered a ‘bottom up’ Agreement. It is intended to apply only to those economic sectors that individual governments explicitly agree to cover. Thus, some governments argue that since they did not commit to apply the GATS provisions to the audiovisual or other cultural sectors, there is a de facto ‘cultural exemption’.
However, certain ‘horizontal’ commitments in the GATS apply to all services even if a government has not committed a specific sector. A significant horizontal provision is the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clause, which requires each country to provide equivalent conditions to all other member states in the WTO. There are exceptions for regional trade agreements and free trade zones. During the Uruguay Round of talks the EC and its member states required exception from the Most Favoured Nation clause in the audiovisual sector, to be able to continue having regional and national cultural and audiovisual policies to promote cultural diversity. But according to GATS provisions all MFN exceptions shall be renegotiated and in principle no MFN exceptions must run longer than ten years. Furthermore, it is uncertain if it is possible to extend the current exception or to introduce new exceptions in the cultural field in the new GATS round. This make exceptions in the audiovisual and other cultural fields utterly fragile.
With a greatly expanded negotiating agenda covering all aspects of the services sector of the economy the opportunity increases for governments to trade off cultural policies in return for progress in other areas such as textiles, natural resources and agriculture. The result of the negotiations is in the hands of trade politicians and beyond the controle of ministers of culture.
As far as the EC is concerned the EC Treaty not only puts the emphasis on promotion and respect for the diversity of its cultures but states that the Community shall take cultural aspects into account in its other actions too. Consequently the Council of the European Union stated in its conclusions concerning the preparation of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle in 1999 that during the forthcoming WTO negotiations the Union will ensure, as in the Uruguay round, that the community and its member states maintain the possibility to preserve and develop their capacity to define and implement their cultural and audiovisual policies for the purpose of preserving their cultural diversity.
Viviane Reding, the commissioner of DG Culture, has stated that the cultural sector will not be affected by the new GATS negotiations. Unfortunately it is not as simple as that, since the effects of GATS in the cultural sector is depending on how different services will be defined in the GATS agreement. For instance the United States questions whether new services on the Internet should be considered as audiovisual services. They believe that these new services should rather be classified under e-commerce services, which will hardly be treated as culture in the WTO context. One of the biggest problems with GATS is that it lacks clear definitions in many areas.
The 30th of June 2002 all member countries in WTO were supposed to table their initial requests to other countries for measures they wish to see removed, or sectors of economic activity they wish the other country to list. These requests clearly demonstrate that many countries, including the EC and its member states, intend to negotiate on culture-related services within the framework of GATS. A compilation made by the Swedish National Board of Trade of requests addressed to Sweden shows that several wide ranging requests have been tabled concerning audiovisual and other cultural services. The United States has announced that it seeks additional commitments from European countries in the audiovisual sector. Brazil and Switzerland have tabled similar requests in the audiovisual sector. Requests in this direction can endanger national and European film support schemes such as the Media Plus programme. They can also be a great threat to national public service television and radio in European countries.
In its requests to other WTO countries the EC and its member states include a number of cultural policy issues. For example from Canada, the EC seeks removal of restrictions against or limitations on foreign ownership of cultural firms, including film distributors. The position of the Swedish government concerning audiovisual services is that they do not want to exclude discussions in the audiovisual sector. This attitude is shared by other European countries. There are thus strong interests also in Europe to bring cultural and audiovisual issues to the negotiation agenda of GATS.
KLYS strongly advises the EC to refrain from bringing into the EC offer any commit-ments that may affect cultural diversity and the possibility of European national governments and the EC institutions to continue pursuing cultural policies and cultural cooperation programmes. At the same time we ask the EC not to give in to any requests addressed to the EC or to European national governments, which could affect the cultural area.
Now, it is obvious that the protection of the cultural dimension must be improved in free trade contexts. In KLYS’ opinion the protection of cultural diversity should be recognised in the same way as environmental and health aspects in the WTO agreements. The preservation of and support to cultural diversity is of fundamental importance to a sustainable economical and social development.
Since the ‘cultural excemption’ from the WTO Agreements, and related strategies that seek to preserve existing cultural policy mechanisms, are inadequate in an era of convergence another solution is required. According to KLYS the protection of cultural diversity should be guaranteed through the establishment of a legally binding instrument – a convention or a treaty - that is applicable on international trade agreements such as the GATS. The INCD has recently released a draft of a possible Convention on Cultural Diversity, which was discussed at the meetings of the INCD and the INCP (the network of 50 ministers of culture around the world) in Cape Town in October 2002
It is important that the EU institutions intensify their work and collaboration internally concerning these issues. A better dialogue between the ministers of trade and the ministers of culture is required and also between the Directorate-General for Trade and the Directorate-General for Culture.
To conclude, KLYS would like to point out that it is of vital importance that NGOs and other groups and individuals who are concerned will have the possibility to be involved and to contribute continuously to the GATS negotiations both at a national and a European level.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Curman President KLYS
Ulrica Källén General Secretary KLYS