It is vital that the proposed UNESCO Convention on cultural diversity is adopted. It is an unprecedented attempt to create an international legal instrument to safeguard and promote cultural diversity. It must also ensure that market structures facilitate a level playing field to the benefit of all the stakeholders that are engaged in the creation, dissemination and distribution of cultural goods and services. Independent music and film companies recently highlighted the need for the Convention to expressly recognise this. The EU has a mandate from its members to negotiate this Convention. This is the opportunity for the EU to prove that it is committed to leading cutting-edge international policy developments.

In Europe, Article 151(4) of the Treaty already obliges the EU to take cultural aspects into account in all its policies. Yet we struggle to see the recent evidence of this in practice, especially with regard to competition rules and the SonyBMG merger. Indeed the decision has left independents no choice but to go to the European courts and fight for cultural diversity when they should be able to rely on the treaty.

It is time for the EU President Mr Barroso to rise to the challenge he set at the Berlin conference for European Cultural Policy in November 2004, when he said that the Commission is “determined to protect and promote cultural diversity as well as to bring our common cultural heritage to the fore, as it is required to do by the Treaties”.  As the President himself acknowledged “The questions of what Europe can do for culture, and what culture can do for Europe…..have acquired a new sense of urgency.” 

We invite the EU to hold a forum for the creative industries.