Jeudi 23 novembre 2017
Lettre au président de la Commission européenne sur les Industries culturelles et créatives
Co-présidente de l’Intergroupe industrie culturelle et créative j’ai adressé, le 23 novembre 2017, avec mon collègue Christian Ehler et d’autres signataires un courrier à Jean-Claude Juncker, président de la Commission européenne, sur les enjeux du secteur pour les années à venir.
Dans sa récente communication destinée à préparer une nouvelle stratégie de l’UE en matière de politique industrielle[1], si la Commission se réfère aux domaines et industries spécifiques, tels que l’énergie, l’acier, l’espace, la défense ou l’industrie manufacturière, elle ignore une grande partie de l’économie européenne : celle des industries culturelles et créatives qui représentent 4,4% du PIB de l’Union (plus de 550 milliards d’euros par an) et fournissent plus de 12 millions d’emplois à temps plein dans environ 3 millions d’entreprises, soit 2,5 fois plus de personnes que la construction automobile et 5 fois plus que l’industrie chimique.
La lettre rappelle au président de la Commission qu’il n’a guère été donné suite aux mesures de soutien préconisées par le rapport du Parlement« Une politique cohérente pour les Industries culturelles et créatives »[2] voté fin 2016. Et que des mesures de soutiens budgétaires sont attendues, dans le cadre du Plan Juncker, des différents fonds européens au-delà d’Europe créative, comme dans le cadre des prochaines perspectives financières.
Les industries culturelles ont un rôle-clé à jouer dans le modèle économique de demain et dans la réindustrialisation de l’Europe, elles sont un moteur de création de valeur ajoutée durable et de création d’emplois; elles permettent des retombées innovantes dans d’autres domaines industriels, comme le tourisme, le commerce de détail ou les technologies numériques.
Il est temps que l’Union européenne comprenne toute l’importance de ce secteur.
[1] http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regdoc/rep/1/2017/FR/COM-2017-479-F1-FR-MAIN-PART-1.PDF
[2] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A8-2016-0357+0+DOC+XML+V0//FR
The President of the European Commission
Jean-Claude Juncker
Rue de la Loi
B – 1047 Brussels
Brussels, 23 November 2017
Perspective on the Union’s policies and action for the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs)
Dear Mr President,
We are contacting you in order to follow up on the most recent actions taken on behalf of the Union for the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs).
As previously stated in a letter by Christian Ehler, the Communication “Investing in a smart, innovative, and sustainable Industry – A renewed EU Industrial Policy Strategy” (COM (2017) 479 final) met a lot of critical voices in the European Parliament.
The Communication is an attempt to prepare a new EU Industrial Policy Strategy. In order to do so, it elaborates on the achievements, current challenges facing the European industry and its potential for the future. The Communication especially refers to specific scope and industries, such as energy, steel, space, defence or manufacturing. A major part of the European economy is however not mentioned – the Cultural and Creative Industries.
To the members of the European Parliament this omission came as a surprise, since CCIs account for approximately 4.4% of the GDP of the Union (more than €550 billion). They provide more than 12 million full-time jobs in about 3 million companies. Only to illustrate these numbers – with 3.8% of Europe’s work force the CCIs employ 2.5 times more people than the automotive manufacturers and 5 times more people than the chemical industry.
As such, the CCIs are an essential feature of our history and our future, a unique selling point for Europe and one of the fastest growing sectors of the European economy.
The disappointment we feel originates more specifically from the overall engagement of the Commission for the European Cultural and Creative Industries. The joint CULT and ITRE report “A coherent EU policy for cultural and creative industries” (2016/2072 (INI)), voted in December 2016, asked for stronger support for the European Cultural and Creative Industries. This report is the very first attempt to come up with a coherent policy for the big and growing part of the EU economy that consists of cultural and creative industries – comprising everything from architecture over artistic crafts, movies, television, video games to fashion, high-end industries, music, books etc. The report touches upon the main challenges for the cultural and creative industries such as combatting counterfeits, improving education and training, preserving of skills – the European savoir-faire, as well as reforming access to finance. Thereby, the European Parliament has designed a blueprint and a vision for the sector’s future. A vision that will help to foster growth, unlock the innovative potential of the sector and ensure a balanced legal framework for creators and their partners and consumers alike.
As such, the report calls for support measures, which include for instance the development of a comprehensive, coherent and long-term industrial policy framework for the CCIs and the inclusion of the development, effective promotion, protection and adequate funding of CCIs in the Commissions strategic goals and overall priorities.
Additionally, it calls on the Commission to introduce an umbrella scheme that bridges the gap between R&D, European creative content production and technological innovation and it urges the Commission to include the CCIs in the Youth Employment Initiative in order to provide funds to facilitate apprenticeship, careers, entrepreneurship and training in this sector.
The Commission has, however, barely acted on any of the support measures, which the report proses, let alone proposed actions for the CCIs on its own behalf. Therefore, the parliament is now taking its own initiative. We aim at delivering on these measures.
One of our first measures, already taken, was the negotiation of a transfer of €60 million from EFSI to the Creative Europe Guarantee Facility, which will take place in coming months. Additionally, the parliament has managed to create a stronger connection between EFSI 2.0 and the above mentioned Guarantee Facility.
Furthermore, we are aiming at the horizontal integration of the CCIs in European funding and support programs. In this context, we are currently exploring ways and means to introduce CCIs to the Structural Funds, Framework Program 9, Smart Cities, the Multi Annual Framework Program and the Youth Employment Initiative.
Within the negotiations for these measures we need the support of the Commission and we would like to cooperate with all institutions in order to create better policies for the CCIs. Furthermore, we believe the inclusion of such an approach by the Commission at the starting point when drafting its proposal for the future MFF next spring would be a great step to create awareness for the CCIs. On top of all of this, we would like to reiterate our previous request for support: Also from the side of the Commission, any upcoming initiative concerning the European industry has to include the cultural and creative industries.
The EU has to take a leading role in promoting the important positive impact that the creative sectors have across Europe! We strongly believe that creative industries have a key role in reindustrialising Europe, are a driver for sustainable growth, for job creation and they are in a strategic position to trigger innovative spill-overs in other industrial sectors, such as tourism, retail, and digital technologies.
It is about time that the European Union accounts for the Cultural and Creative sector, which has supported the European economy for decades.
We are counting on you and would be grateful if you kept us posted on upcoming initiatives in this context and we remain at your disposal for any further discussion.
Yours sincerely,
Members of the European Parliament,
Christian Ehler, (EPP – GER) Co-president CCIs Intergroup
Pervenche Berès, (S&D – FR) Co-president CCIs Intergroup
Helga Trüpel, (GREEN – GER) Bureau Member CCIs Intergroup
Pascal Arimont (EPP – BEL)
José Blanco Lopez (S&D – ESP)
Jean- Marie Cavada (ALDE – FRA)
Silvia Costa (S&D – ITA)
Ana Gomes (S&D – PRT)
Giorgos Grammatikakis (S&D – GRE)
Maria Grapini (S&D – ROU)
Enrique Guerrero Salom (S&D – ES)
Sylvie Guillaume (S&D – FRA)
Marc Joulaud (EPP – FRA)
Petra Kammerevert (S&D – GER)
Javier López (S&D – ESP)
Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D – ESP)
Antonio López Istúriz (EPP – ESP)
Luigi Morgano (S&D – ITA)
Christine Revault d’Allonnes (S&D – FRA)
Tokia Saïfi (EPP – FRA)
Inese Vaidere (EPP – LVA)
Sabine Verheyen (EPP – GER)
Axel Voss (PPE – GER)
La lettre en pdf : CCIs letter to President Juncker – November 2017 fin