BSAC’s Recommendations to Government on the UK’s new arrangements with Europe

BSAC has published Recommendations to Government on the UK’s new arrangements with Europe.

The paper underlines the importance of the Creative Industries to the UK economy, identifies four principles that should be taken into account in negotiations over future trade relationships and describes three broad areas where further opportunities may lie. Importantly, it urges the Government to take into account the following six key priorities for the UK audiovisual sector:

• Ensure the UK – as a global audiovisual hub – is open to the skilled workers that are an essential precondition to success in the creative sectors;
• Maintain the benefits provided by the AVMS Directive, in particular the single market access that results from the Country of Origin Principle;
• Ensure that UK content continues to meet the requirements to qualify as “European works” post Brexit, by remaining a signatory to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television and doing everything possible to ensure that the AVMS Directive continues to classify programmes made in Convention countries as “European Works”;
• Support the Intellectual Property protections that underpin the success of the Creative Industries, and resist damaging encroachment on territorial and exclusive copyright licensing;
• Ensure reciprocal freedoms for Creative Industries businesses operating in the UK and EU to invest in each other, at a time when media companies are consolidating and expanding their global footprints; and
• Allow data to flow freely between the UK and the EU, so the games industry and other Creative Industries can develop new business models and enhance consumers’ experiences.

A copy of our Recommendations can be downloaded here.

This document was produced by a BSAC working group chaired by Tim Suter. The rapporteur was Jonathan Simon.