ECA sent the following comment to DG Enterprise on 16 November:
The European Council of Artists (ECA) - an umbrella for interdisciplinary artists' councils and professional artists' associations from 26 countries across Europe – would hereby like to comment to the Commission's Communication "Reviewing Community Innovation Policy in a Changing World".
The first lines of the introduction states that, "Innovation comes from people - and only people - scientists, researchers, entrepreneurs and their employees, investors, consumers and public authorities". ECA agrees with this statement, but regrets that with this fact settled there are no further considerations in the Communication on the originators of innovation.
The Communication focuses on the exploitation of the ideas and creations, on how to establish competitive environments etc. These aspects are of course of great importance - provided that the new ideas, the creative content, are there. We would hereby like to underline the need also to address the content providers - their formation and their working conditions.
The connections between culture-based creativity and innovation are documented in the study "The Impact of Culture to Creativity" produced for DG Education and Culture earlier this year. Artists should also have been mentioned as a key category for innovation in the quotation above.
The fact that competences and qualifications requested by innovative enterprises and sectors correspond to those used by artists in their processes for creation or performance, was also highlighted by a number of speakers at ECA's 2009 conference "Experiencing the Arts | artists’ contribution to creative thinking and European innovation", held in Malta 30 October - 1 November. The conclusion, also valid for this consultation, is that artistic and cultural studies, which permit children/young people/students to develop their creative and musical sensitivity and skills, are assets for the future.
Measures that make art and culture-based activities an integral element of educational and learning strategies at all educational levels should also be considered a part of the new European innovation policy initiatives.
The Communication correctly mentions intellectual property rights as a precondition for innovation. ECA would hereby like to emphasise the importance of maintaining and developing the European system of authors' and performers' rights, managed by the authors' own societies where-by control of and use of their work stays with the authors and where they are remunerated for it – affording them opportunity of continuing with their creative activities.
ECA regrets that the EU Commission through its recent policies (for example the DG Single Market Recommendation on cross-border management of online music rights from 2007) are undermining the efforts of the existing, often nation based, collecting societies to make transnational administration of rights more efficient in order to meet the demands of globalisation.
ECA fears that the present tendencies to concentrate IPR administration and to let industrial concerns - with their focus on mediation on a grand scale - play an increased role, will lead to a mainstreaming of content and that un-established creators or those from smaller nations or cultural minorities will never get proper attention. Such developments iendanger the Europe's potential for innovation and diversity. In this regard ECA will also draw your attention to the UNESCO Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, which came into force in 2007.
Europe's competitive advantage compared to for example the US and Japan is its cultural diversity. "United in Diversity" should be more that a sound bite. Europe's cultural diversity should be taken into account when a new European innovation policy is formulated.
ECA would welcome an opportunity to engage further with the Commission on these and related matters.
Michael Burke
president