France: Splice Film Out Of Wto

A French government report has called for audiovisual products to be negotiated outside of the next round of World Trade Organization talks set for November in Seattle, marking the first salvo in what may be another heated battle over commerce and culture.

The report, commissioned by France's socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, recommends that cultural and audiovisual questions be negotiated separately to account for the sector's unique nature.

"The cultural and audiovisual sector constitutes a special case," the report states, recommending that the exception "must absolutely be maintained in the framework of the WTO."

The report suggests that holding cultural negotiations at a dedicated international conference, possibly under the auspices of an organization like UNESCO. It argues that a negotiation timetable be established this year, with the aim of arriving at a new legal framework adapted to the audiovisual sector that may be integrated into the WTO.

France invoked the cultural exception during 1993 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade negotiations in Uruguay, when it lobbied successfully to have audiovisual products exempted from the world trade agreement.

The report, compiled by European deputy Catherine Lalumiere, was commissioned after the Multilateral Agreement on Investment -- the proposed international treaty on liberalizing investments that would have given Hollywood studios the right to tap into European arts subsidies -- was abandoned in the fall after France pulled out.

The report's content was made public Thursday. The French government said it published the document to get the information out but is not bound by its recommendations.

The report states that a conflict could arise between two objectives for the audiovisual sector: guaranteeing free circulation of cultural and audiovisual products and preserving cultural diversity and flourishing national production. These objectives' compatibility is not automatically guaranteed, the report states, and production and distribution dynamics can threaten diversity -- a clear reference to the domination of U.S. product in certain markets.

There are signs that the Seattle round will witness a repeat of furious French-led lobbying during the GATT talks to have cultural output treated separately.

Culture and communications ministers of most of the 15 European Union member nations met in Finland last month to begin shaping a common strategy on audiovisual and cultural issues.

"Audiovisual aspects will no doubt be the most delicate in these negotiations, which must aim to preserve our cultural sovereignty," French Culture Minister Catherine Trautmann told her European counterparts. "The fact that audiovisual content is increasingly supplied in exchange for payment must not lead to considering these as ordinary electronic commercial transactions."