European film in the digital era

The EESC welcomes the Commission Communication on "European film in the digital era – Bridging cultural diversity and competitiveness" (COM(2014) 272 final), and emphasises that there needs to be an appropriate balance between the audio-visual sector's value in a business and commercial sense and its value to Europe from a cultural heritage perspective. Intrinsically these two aspects cannot be dealt with separately.

Ms Darmanin:

"The digital era offers a number of challenges to the audio-visual sector but it also offers a number of opportunities. So, at the EESC what we have done is try to identify which areas should be looked into by the sector and also by policymakers and which areas are opportunities. So now is the time, the right time, to be discussing maybe a new innovative business model for the sector. It is also the time to be rethinking how we finance the audio-visual sector. So, here we are proposing that financing, which is up to Member States, is more focused on areas of real need such as attracting private investment, and also that it is maximised. And yes, private investment ought also to be coming from, for example, the new players in the sector: the audio-visual industry and telecommunications."