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28 / 05 / 2004
Joan Majó: We have confused privitazation with the disappearence of public service
The Dialogue “Global Audiovisual Communication, Cultural Diversity and Regulation” was opened by its director and president of the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia, Francesc Codina, and, during two days, will deal with concepts like trade, cultural policy and challenges for the future.
Joan Majó, general director of CCRTV (the Catalan Corporation of Radio and Television) explained that “we have confused privatization with the disappearance of public service, the change in management shouldn’t carry with it a change in the nature of the service.” Majó pointed out that the as far as audiovisual content is concerned, “the private operators are exactly the same as the public.” The director of CCRTV added that the fundamental rights, although they are collective values, must be imposed in private management.
Majó criticized the sanctioning capacity and excessive importance of the World Trade Organization (WTO), “putting free trade agreements on a higher level than others has been a political error.” Majó added that a solution would be “to adopt multilateral solutions like Europe and no unilateral solutions like the US is carrying out.” Majó explained that “the free circulation of cultural products is contradictory to the freedom of circulation” given that unilateral policies of a world power are based on trade.
Ramon Torrent, director of the Globalization Observatory at the Universitat de Barcelona, reviewed international regulation. Torrent explained that after the birth of the WTO, the cultural sector demanded concrete policies in the framework of the General Agreement on Trade In Services and thanks to the agreements in Morocco the audiovisual sector has lived under a “cultural exception”. The renegotiation of these agreements is scheduled for this year.
Torrent explained that in the globalized framework these dispositions do not exist in the cultural realm as they do in finance, maritime and aerial transport and therefore “it’s dangerous to lose national policies and rights to European policies.” In light of this, Torrent explained that the European Constitution “is not yet a constitution but rather a treaty that already angers us even though it hasn’t been approved or finalized.“
Bonnie Richardson, vice-president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) spoke of regulation in the US and the “erroneous” belief that it is necessary to choose between culture and entertainment, between cultural diversity and commerce, and between business commitments and deregulation, as all of these concepts are indeed compatible. Richardson also stated that the policies of the World Trade Organization are “more flexible when it comes to trading systems than people think.”
Co-president of Quebec’s Coalition pour la Diversité Culturelle, Pierre Curzi, spoke of cultural diversity and the fact that “we all want free circulation and easy access to the world’s cultures.” Curzi stated that “each country needs a real, legal framework for its cultural policies that must be compatible with the WTO framework.” Curzi encouraged those attending the debate to “talk to their governments to make them aware of what is at stake.”
This Dialogue on broadcasting was preceded by the award ceremony of the Unesco Fellini Medal, which has been granted to film-makers Chantal Akerman and Ousmane Sembene. Akerman said that “there will be increasingly less diversity in the world” and that institutions must continue to support creators to stop this trend and so that “we and our viewers can exist.” The medal awarded to Ousmane Sembene—a film-maker who promotes dialogue and the search for the essence of humans—was accepted by Senegal’s Minister for Information, Mamadou Diop on Sembene’s behalf.
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