ECA URGES FAST RATIFICATION OF UNESCO CONVENTION
The ECA has sent an open letter to the EU governments and parliaments as well as to the cultural committee MEPs in which it emphasised the importance of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and expressed its concern that the ratification process of the document may be inordinately slow and complicated. The ECA has also pointed out that no commitments whatsoever should be undertaken under the WTO negotiation process that would negatively affect the Convention provisions and spirit.
In reaction to the appeal, the ECA has received a number of answers. Listed below is a quote from the response by MEP Ruth Hieronymi describing the present state of affairs (13 Feb. 2006):
The Culture Committee is in charge of this ratification process at the EU-Parliament. (...) Opinions will be done by the Foreign Affairs committee and the Development Committee. The schedule of a legislative process in the EU-Parliament requires a voting in the Committees preparing the opinions, and then a voting in the Culture committee before the voting in the Plenary. Up to now there is no decision made on the schedule of this process.
The ECA is resolved to continue its efforts and contact the rapporteur, MEP Christa Prets. At the same time ECA members are urged to exert pressure on their national parliaments and governments to adopt and ratify the Convention.
ECA SUCCESSFULLY INTERVENES FOR WRITERS IN EXILE
The ECA in a letter to the Austrian Federal Chancellery emphasised the importance of the international “Writers in Exile” programme, noting that Austria, which currently hosts two poets from Pakistan and India, had terminated supporting the programme earlier this year.
The fact led the Austrian writers’ association to urge the ECA to intervene. A letter and a consequent telephone call on the part of ECA President Ludwig Laher has proven successful, for Mr Laher argued that according to the International PEN, the two writers, Aftab Husain and Sarita Jenamani, a married couple with a small child, have much contributed to the climate of mutual respect and tolerance, among others, by translating Indian poetry into the Urdu, one of Pakistan’s major languages.
As a living example of cultural diversity and tolerance they were forced to leave their native countries. Residing in Austria, they are currently working on a book which relates the experience of a mixed marriage in a region rift by conflict and will be presented this October at the Frankfurt International Book Fair (where India will be the focus country). Austrian authorities have now decided to prolong the couple’s residence permission for another year.
AUTHORS ADDRESS EC COMMISSIONER
At the annual meeting in Vilnius in October 2005, the ECA decided to write a letter to support the resolution on the future of cross-border online distribution of music, passed in September 2005 in Amsterdam by CIAM (Conseil International des Auteurs et Compositeurs de Musique, part of the CISAC).
After having been lobbied intensively by the music industry and the four-five global Majors in the entertainment business – and in their striving to have works of art regarded as mere goods just like any other commercial commodity traded within the EC Internal Market - the European Commission in the late fall of 2005 had issued a Recommendation jeopardising seriously the European concept of Authors’ Rights vis-à-vis the Anglo-American concept of copyright.
Unlike a Directive proposal, a Recommendation from the Commission is a dictate and not subject to any democratic scrutiny by the EU-Parliament, the European Council of Ministers, or the national governments.
In late 2005, the Commissioner for Inner Market and Services, Charlie McCreevy, had to admit that he and his staff had failed to hear authors on equal terms with the industry and publishers. Consequently, a Meeting with Commissioner McCreevy took place on the 21st of February in Brussels.
ECA General Secretary Pia Raug, who in her capacity of current CIAM President headed the delegation of six European composers’ representatives, used the opportunity to hand over to the Commissioner the ECA Vilnius letter of support to the CIAM.
The letter stating that even though the Recommendation has in the first instance been aimed merely at the online distribution of musical works, it might soon begin to have serious implications also for the distribution of most other art forms in the online environment, with distribution of audiovisual works probably being next in line for this kind of practice. Apart from handing over the ECA letter, Pia Raug also strongly urged the Commissioner to at least lend an ear to the arguments of the representatives of all art genres, that would be as open as it was to those of the lobbyists of the global corporate entertainment industries, before changing and challenging the droit d’auteur system that has worked to the benefit of all in Europe for more than two centuries.
ECA PRESIDENT LAHER HAD TALKS IN BRUSSELS
ECA President Ludwig Laher travelled to Brussels to take part in the founding meeting of INCD Europe, to talk with Antonios Kosmopoulos from the new Commission Agency responsible for funding NGOs like ECA, and to meet our Belgian member ACV Cultuur.
The European INCD members convened in Brussels to establish under the provisions of Belgian law a legal body for a European section. Most decisions, however, will be made at its first general assembly scheduled to take place later this year. The supporters of INCD Europe include Belgium’s Flemish government (EUR 15000 to start the work) and EUROCINEMA which will house coordinator Antje Behrens and the INCD Europe office in the centre of Brussels. Among the networks present were EUROCINEMA, EFAH, ECA and EBU. Verena Wiedemann (ARD/EBU), Yvon Thiec (EUROCINEMA) and Ric Vanmolkot form the provisional founding board.
On the occasion of his meeting with Mr Antonios Kosmopoulos, head of the Culture Department in the Education, Audio-Visual and Culture Executive Agency of the European Commission, ECA President Ludwig Laher informed about the new developments in our organisation and underlined the necessity of a joint representation of European professional artists’ umbrellas.
Mr Kosmopoulos considers continuously working NGOs in the cultural field to be very important. Due to recent structural changes on the side of the Commission, however, decisions concerning funding will be officially announced in May. Regular communication between the Agency and the ECA will be established.
Following the unfortunate conflict with the former Belgian president of the ECA, Hubert Biebaut, the Executive Committee considered it crucial to signal to our Belgian members that the ECA was eager to re-establish co-operation. As Mr Biebaut’s organisation, the ACOD Cultuur decided to leave our umbrella, ECA President Ludwig Laher met our other Belgian member, the ACV Cultuur. Jean-Paul van der Vurst responsible for the sector of culture in the ACV union stated that his organisation was ready to assume a more active role in the ECA again. In the long run, the ECA should aim at incorporating it its fold organisations of the French speaking part of Belgium including creative authors’ associations. As the establishment of a classical and fully functioning nation-wide umbrella organisation in the country seems quite unfeasible, varied forms of co-operation in European and global discourses should be sought.
KLYS SUES COMMERCIAL BREAKS DURING FILMS ON TV
KLYS, our Swedish member organisation, successfully objected to commercial breaks interrupting art films on privately operated TV channels: The Stockholm City Court in its judgement of 20 December 2004 ruled that TV4 by broadcasting advertisement breaks during the screening of films altered the directors' creative work, thereby infringing on its unique character as stipulated by Par. 3 of the Author’s Law governing the moral rights of the artistic creator. TV4 has appealed, however.
CASE AGAINST ORHAN PAMUK THROWN OUT OF COURT
In late January a court in Istanbul dismissed charges against Turkey’s best-selling novelist Orhan Pamuk accused under Article 301 of the country’s penal code of having defamed Turkish identity by saying to a Swiss newspaper that a million Armenians and thirty thousand Kurds had been killed by the Ottoman Empire during World War 1.
The European Union, which Turkey is eager to join, hailed the decision as good news for freedom of expression but called on Turkish authorities to close the loopholes in the revised penal code under which some sixty other journalists, writers and intellectuals are still being tried for similar offences.
The ECA is proud to have raised its voice together with many other organisations and individuals in defence of the freedom of speech, insisting in a letter to Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan that the charges against Orhan Pamuk be immediately dismissed.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING IN BERLIN,
VENUE OF 2006 ECA CONFERENCE AND CONGRESS
On the occasion of its Executive Committee’s meeting in Berlin in early March, the ECA established co-operation with our German member IGBK and the Academy of Fine Arts. As a practical result, we will bring the 2006 ECA Conference and Congress to Berlin. The main focus of the forum will dwell on the ratification and implementation of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions in Europe. The Conference will also discuss the dynamics of the GATS process and the damage caused by commitments made especially in the audiovisual sector.
Among the many items on the EC Berlin meeting agenda – apart from some of the topics dealt with above – were also the amendments of the EU service directive and the legal brief which the ECA commissioned from the noted lawyer Alfred Noll. His report on the new European warrant of arrest and its implications to the artists can be read on our homepage www.eca.dk. There is a German version (complete text) and an English translation (not complete yet). During the next EC meeting to be held in Prague in June conclusions will be drawn from the paper.
2005 ECA VILNIUS CONFERENCE REPORT AVAILABLE
“Borders between Art and Reality” was the title of the 2005 ECA conference held in Vilnius, Lithuania. The conference report including speeches and summaries by Sarunas Nakas, Joachim Kettel, Max Kestner, Kirill Razlogov, John Smith, Vaclovas Krutinis and Monica Lotreanu is currently being distributed to the ECA membership. Additional copies may be ordered from the office. Special thanks must go to the moderator of the conference, Joachim Kettel, and to the editor, ECA Vice President Simon Pellar.
The ECA Executive Committee
Ludwig Laher, writer, Austria, President
Narcy Calamatta, actor, Malta, Vice-President
Simon Pellar, translator, Czech Republic, Vice-President
Renate Christin, visual artist, Germany
Franz Ernst, film director, Denmark
Agnes Péter, sculptor, Hungary
Tomo Vran, visual artist, Slovenia
European Council of Artists, Borgergade 111, DK-1300 Copenhagen K, Denmark
phone: +45-35384401, fax: +45-35384417, e-mail: eca@eca.dk, web: www.eca.dk