Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 3, 1993 TAG: 9310030014
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: D-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM LENGTH: Medium
Some EC nations are pressing for culture to be excluded from the Uruguay Round of negotiations, designed to liberalize world trade. They are concerned lest Hollywood productions swamp the European movie and TV industries.
Movies are a huge export earner for the United States, and Washington wants European markets If we agree to subject cultural goods to GATT, in 10 years all films and audiovisual programs will be of American or Japanese origin. Jacques Toubon French Culture Minister opened.
Last year, audiovisual products were the second-biggest U.S. export to the 12-nation EC with sales of $3.7 billion. EC film, television and video exports to the United States totaled $300 million.
France is leading the call for the EC to take a tough stand against the United States in the world trade talks, sponsored by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT.
"If we agree to subject cultural goods to GATT, in 10 years all films and audiovisual programs will be of American or Japanese origin," French Culture Minister Jacques Toubon wrote in the Paris daily Le Monde on Friday.
"It's `Dallas' or French creativity," singer-actor Renaud said in a recent TV interview.
The Texas oil family soap opera was a huge hit on European networks. European intellectuals often cite it as an example of U.S. "cultural imperialism."
Renaud co-stars with Gerard Depardieu in "Germinal," a drama about the 19th-century struggle for miners' rights which, at $28 million, is France's most expensive film. President Francois Mitterrand and a host of French cultural and political figures attended the opening night of "Germinal." Some expressed the hope it would rival Spielberg's dinosaur epic "Jurassic Park" in French movie houses this fall. Renaud said the heavily subsidized movie would not have been made if GATT rules applied now.
The French have company in their culture struggle.
More than 4,400 European movie actors, producers, directors and writers recently took out full-page ads in major European newspapers urging the EC to protect their industry from a Hollywood onslaught. Directors Sir Richard Attenborough, Michelangelo Antonioni, Wim Wenders, Pedro Almodovar and Jean-Luc Godard were among those who signed.
"The goal of the main [American] companies is to complete the conquest of a market they virtually dominate entirely, thus annihilating all creative efforts in Europe," read the ad.
The Europeans argue that with their market divided by language, they cannot compete with the economies of scale enjoyed by American studios. They also point out that American audiences are much less receptive to foreign-language films than Europeans.
According to the French Ministry of Culture, American movies now account for more than 60 percent of box office revenues in French cinemas, while French films make up only 0.5 percent of the American market.
In Germany, U.S. films accounted for 86 percent of ticket sales in the first half of this year.
The French claim GATT would bring an end to government subsidies - the lifeblood for many filmmakers. They also want to maintain quotas for non-European programs on EC TV channels. France, for example, requires TV networks to ensure 60 percent of shows are European.
In what could be an opening shot of a TV war, the EC's executive commission has taken Britain to task for giving American TV magnate Ted Turner permission to transmit his TNT and Cartoon Network to Europe by satellite.
The Community's top trade negotiator, Sir Leon Brittan, said the EC should not seek to exclude movies from world trade talks, but that he would try to get special treatment for the European movie industry. But Toubon warned, "Even if the letter of the [GATT] treaty gives the appearance of sparing Community and national rules, they would be condemned."
by CNB