Cinema Communication: All’s well that ends well?

By Francisco Javier Cabrera Blázquez and Amélie Lépinard, European Audiovisual Observatory

Since 2011, the cinema and audiovisual industries have awaited with great interest and in most cases some apprehension the results of a public consultation process that aimed at adapting the European Commission’s 10-year-old state aid rules – the so-called Cinema Communication – to the new connected, multiscreen audiovisual landscape. Great interest because the European cinema and audiovisual industries rely to an important extent on public funding to survive in a commercial environment dominated by US productions.

Apprehension because the Commission’s initial proposals on two fundamental topics (territorial spending obligations and the so-called subsidy race) were perceived by many stakeholders as a rapier thrust under the belt of public funding schemes. Time and negotiation bore their fruit, and in November 2013 the Commission finally adopted its Communication on state aid for films and other audiovisual works (hereinafter: 2013 Communication).

This Communication contains revised criteria for assessing under EU state aid rules member states’ support schemes in favour of films and other audiovisual works. This article tells the story of how these new rules came to life. The first part provides a short description of the general EU rules concerning culture and state aid. The second part offers an overview of the Cinema Communication that the European Commission adopted in 2001, with its subsequent temporary extensions. The third part describes the consultation process that led to the adoption in 2013 of a new Cinema Communication. The fourth part gives an overview of the 2013 Communication and the various reactions to it. The article finishes with a short reflection on the near future.

New Cinema Communication

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