- Today, the European Parliament adopted its report entitled “A Coherent EU Policy for the Cultural and Creative Industries”.
Guillaume de Seynes, Chairman of the European Cultural and Creative Industries Alliance (ECCIA), welcomed the report: “ECCIA warmly welcomes the European Parliament’s report and its understanding of the key contribution of the High-end cultural and creative industries to Europe’s competitiveness, growth, jobs and international attractiveness.
We hope that the recommendations of the report will strongly contribute to the upcoming discussions over a number of initiatives to the creation of a coherent policy able to sustain the development of a major European industrial sector”.
The report tackles a number of key issues for the high-end industries, including:
- A definition of cultural and creative industries (CCIs) and the sectors it encompasses, including high-end industries, which will contribute to overcoming the fragmented approach towards CCIs at member state level and enable their promotion across Europe;
- The recognition of the negative impacts of counterfeiting and the need to reinforce the existing framework through the introduction of tougher sanctions for counterfeiters, the introduction of traceability mechanisms as a deterrent to counterfeiters, and – most importantly – by involving all intermediaries in the fight against counterfeiting.
An emphasis on the need to preserve traditional savoir-faire and to promote skills and vocational training.
ECCIA is looking forward to continuing its fruitful dialogue with the Members of the European Parliament – and especially with the members of the Parliamentary intergroup on cultural and creative industries – in order to ensure that the issues identified in this report are reflected in the priorities of the EU agenda.
In particular, we call upon the European Commission to fully support the European Parliament’s call to strengthen the EU framework of intellectual property rights’ (IPR) protection through a rebalancing of responsibilities in the fight against counterfeiting during the upcoming revision of the Directive on the enforcement of IPR (so-called “IPRED”).
