Scenkonstfrågor får allt större utrymme i EU – PEARLEs chef Anita Debaere rapporterar från Bryssel i månadens krönika
På fredag möts representanter för 4000 europeiska scenkonstorganisationer i Stockholm. Då står Svensk Scenkonst värd för det internationella arbetsgivarnätverket PEARLEs höstkonferens (PEARLE - Performing Arts Employers Association League Europe). Svensk Scenkonst var med och grundade organisationen 1991 och har sedan dess varit en drivande kraft. Allt fler beslut som rör svenskt teater-, dans-, och musikliv fattas på europeisk nivå och nätverket fyller därför en viktig funktion. I månadens krönika berättar Anita Debaere, chef för PEARLEs kontor i Bryssel, om vilka frågor som varit i fokus under 2009.
The year 2009 was earmarked by many political changes: in June a new European Parliament was elected, in October president Barroso from the European Commission was accepted by the Council and the Parliament to continue his work for a next term of 6 years. As the last countries in 2009 finally ratified the Lisbon Treaty, the Heads of State under the diplomacy of Sweden, could appoint, for the first time, a President of the Council. Not much later Commission president proposed his team of Commissioner-designates.
2009 was the European Year of Creativity and Innovation. The early weeks of 2009 for Pearle were filled with meetings at the working groups set up by the two cultural platforms ‘access to culture’ and ‘cultural and creative industries’. These working groups developed each within their own themes recommendations and suggestions, to feed into a common paper which was to be finalised by June 2009. Pearle actively made recommendations in areas such as mobility, access to financing, education, participation, and creativity.The papers were the results of a new working method, encompassing a dialogue between the cultural sector -representing civil society- and the European Commission.
In January, the mobility pilot project “PRACTICS - Makes culture move” kicked of, with a first partner meeting in Brussels. Later in the year, in April, Pearle organised an informal briefing on mobility in the cultural sector presenting two pilot projects (“Practics” and “Space”) and holding an exchange on the progress made by the Member States working group on mobility (OMC Open Method of Coordination) and with the European Commission. A second initiative by Pearle, as project partner, concerned a seminar on ‘social security and taxation in the context of mobility’ on 10 November 2009. Pearle also engaged in a project on higher music education ‘Polifonia’, organising a workshop for its orchestra members in Geneva and hosting a working group meeting in October. That month also meant the end of the Leonardo project Live Performane Technics (LPTinEU), which aimed at developing a competence analysis tool.
As European social partner, Pearle engaged together with its trade-union social partners in a number of activities. There was the Theatre Technical Forum, including a meeting in Milan mid-March and resulting in a report on ‘theatre technical training in Europe 1998-2008’ finalised by the end of September; during the year a project started entitled “Strengthening social dialogue in live performance sector in Southern Europe”. Social partners also endorsed two joint statements, one on “the impact of the financial crisis on the sector” and another one on “Creativity, innovation and the role of cultural sector”.
As the elections for the European Parliament in June were approaching, Pearle provided for its members a weekly newsletter starting to count down 10 weeks before the elections, and an accompanying paper on the different political groups in Parliament. After the elections Pearle sent to the newly elected Members of Parliament a briefing note highlighting the need for a sustainable environment in Europe for the performing arts.
Intellectual property and the digital environment were the two domains dominating the Pearle agenda in 2009. The proposal for an extension of term of protection of copyright and related rights, attracted heavy debates in the media. The less-debated part on the proposal to harmonise the calculation of co-written works, affecting half of the EU Member States, including Sweden, was strongly opposed by Pearle, arguing that this is not proportionate compared to the impact it will have on our sector.
The other worrying initiative from the Commission concerns the digital dividend, whereby the EU is proposing a harmonisation of the radio spectrum , thereby reallocating the 800MhZ band and pushing out users of wireless microphones, such as the live performance sector, to allow for new operators to deploy their activities in this frequency range. This process will result in major investments for the sector, in just a few years time. Pearle argues that if the sector is forced to move out of its frequency range the process should allow for a gradual change and governments should foresee a compensation of the costs that theatres and performing arts organisations will have to make.
By the end of 2009, Pearle’s agenda is filling up with many new issues to be followed in 2010 in areas such as employment, health and safety, energy, third-country nationals, culture and education, entreprise, competition and state aid, intellectual property, informationsociety, internal market, etcetera.
Anita Debaere, Director PEARLE (Performing Arts Employers Association League Europe)
www.pearle.ws