The European coalitions wrote a letter to the President of the European Commission, M. Barroso, urging him to intervene in order to dissociate the Protocol of Cultural Cooperation from the Free Trade agreement negotiations now being held with Korea.

Read the letter and the comments of the European coalitions on the Concept Paper of the European Commission.

The French coalition for cultural diversity expressed its concerns with regards to the advancing negotiations between the European Union and Korea on a free trade agreement and its attached cultural cooperation protocol. Eager to finalize this commercial agreement at the earliest, DG Trade basically has offered the Koreans a protocol similar to the one concluded with the Caribbean countries, even though the Korean audiovisual industry is far from being one of a developing country.  Yet, ignoring the repeated appeals of professionals, no impact study has been conducted on the subject. This allows culture and audiovisual to become bargaining chips in a global trade negotiation, and this is unacceptable.

Culture enjoys a specific statute now recognised by UNESCO and it cannot be allowed that it is dealt with within the frame of general trade agreements. It is essential that discussions regarding the cultural cooperation protocol be totally disconnected from general trade negotiations and be only offered to countries which have ratified the Convention.

Pascal Rogard, President of the French coalition for cultural diversity, wrote to Catherine Aston, External Trade Commissioner and to Viviane Reding, Information and Media Society Commissioner to express its concern about the advancing negotiations of a cultural trade agreement with Korea which could threaten the European audiovisual industry.
Read Catherine Ashton’s reply, dated January 21, 2009.