Introduction. Wary Movie 5

In this spring of 2013, the European film industry
is once again on its guard. A new version of
the European Commission’s Communication on
State Aid, which should provide an alternative to
the highly controversial one debated last year, is
expected. The Creative Europe Programme, which
is due to replace the MEDIA programme from
1 January 2014, is also expected to be adopted
by the Council of Ministers and the European
Parliament, but the fact that the EU budget has
not yet been passed is casting uncertainty over
the new programme’s budget and the scale of
the activities that can be undertaken. Finally, the
announcement of the forthcoming opening of
negotiations on a free-trade agreement between
the EU and the United States has again conjured
the spectre of the partner across the Atlantic raising
objections to the arrangements in the national
European systems for funding not only films but
also public service media. Even if an attempt is
made to get the United States to accept the status
quo as far as cinema and television are concerned,
it will still be necessary to establish that the cultural
exception principle and the objectives regarding
the promotion of European works also apply to
online services. However, the argument generally
put forward by the U.S. authorities and large
corporations is that online services belong to the
telecommunications rather than the audiovisual
sector and must accordingly be exempt from
cultural exception considerations.