Update on Canada/EU negotiations: the culture angle

CCA Bul­letin 03/12

Feb­ru­ary 21, 2012

Just the facts

Some encour­ag­ing news con­cern­ing the sta­tus of cul­ture in the on-going trade nego­ti­a­tions between Canada and the Euro­pean Union! The CCA learned dur­ing the brief­ing ses­sion held by the Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs and Inter­na­tional Trade (DFAIT) that:

• It is more than likely that, with the sup­port of some Euro­pean coun­tries, Canada will be able to include a direct ref­er­ence to the UNESCO Dec­la­ra­tion on Cul­tural Diver­sity at the top of the Com­pre­hen­sive Eco­nomic and Trade Agree­ment (CETA) as well as extended word­ing to the effect that sig­na­tory coun­tries reserve the right to sub­si­dize and pro­tect cul­tural prod­ucts whichever way they think appro­pri­ate, cul­ture not being like other goods or prod­ucts cov­ered by the agreement;

• EU coun­tries fol­low closely Canada’s efforts to mod­ern­ize its Copy­right Act and express seri­ous con­cerns about Bill C-11 with regards to the numer­ous exemp­tions it pro­poses, par­tic­u­larly con­cern­ing edu­ca­tion, and the respon­si­bil­ity of inter­net ser­vice providers (ISPs) in fight­ing piracy; and,

• While Euro­peans con­tinue to press for Canada to relax its poli­cies con­cern­ing for­eign invest­ments in telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, which Canada is resist­ing, their inter­est in doing the same for book retail­ing appears to be waning.

Tell me more

CETA nego­ti­a­tions have been going on for three years now and it is hoped that they will be wrapped up by late sum­mer or early fall. It was con­firmed dur­ing the DFAIT brief­ing that cul­ture has not been dis­cussed seri­ously yet and will likely be part of the stick­ier ele­ments left after the next round of face-to-face meet­ings in March. Canada has been at the van­guard of the pro­mo­tion of the UNESCO Dec­la­ra­tion on Cul­tural Diver­sity and was the first coun­try to sign it in Novem­ber 2005. It is there­fore good news to hear that while the EU still ques­tions the extent of the cul­tural exemp­tion put for­ward by the Cana­dian team (par­tic­u­larly as it would apply to intel­lec­tual prop­erty), the fed­eral gov­ern­ment will stick to its guns with the sup­port of Que­bec and France. The CCA will keep fol­low­ing this file closely and report to you any new developments.