Written evidence submitted by the Federation of Entertainment Unions (IOB0135)
 

Leaving the European Union - Culture Media and Sport Committee. Issues of concern to FEU members

The Federation of Entertainment Unions is an organisation which represents UK trade unions involved in the media and entertainment sector. Its membership is:

British Actors' Equity

Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union

Musicians' Union

National Union of Journalists

Professional Footballers' Association

Unite

Writers' Guild of Great Britain

This submission outlines some of the key concerns that have emerged in the sectors where FEU affiliates have members.

Freedom of movement: workers

This is pretty much top of everybody's list in the Cultural industries. There is widespread exchange of labour between the UK and both EU and non-EU countries. One-off projects like feature films, as well as touring performances, invariably make use of some level of non-UK labour, and have become used to free travel for workers throughout the EU. A return to the world of work permits will be a major administrative burden on creative activity, particularly for smaller organisations.

A restriction on free movement will also affect the many EU residents who have relocated to work in the UK cultural sector, and the smaller number of UK citizens who have moved in the opposite direction. Many parts of the entertainment industry have developed partially globalised workforces, who expect to spend parts of their working lives based outside their country of birth, and this enables exchange of skills and creative ideas which have helped to make the UK a cultural hub on a world level.

At the very least there should be a right to remain for EU workers already living in the UK, with reciprocal rights for UK citizens working in the EU, and a continuation of free travel in the EU for workers in the cultural sector. It may also be an opportunity to point to the shortage of key skills in the UK necessitating the use of migrant labour, arguing for more training of UK citizens.

Freedom of movement: goods

Cross-border working is commonplace in the performance, film, TV, theatre, and events industries, and any restriction on free movement of equipment, scenery, props, costumes, etc would add cost and delay to projects. A return to the days of international transport carnets would be a major burden on companies in the sector.

We should aim for a simply administrative device to allow movement of goods needed for the entertainment sector across the EU without carnets.

Funding

Several EU budget lines are accessed by arts and entertainment organisations in the UK. Often the sums involved are relatively small, but the grants awarded are crucial to get projects off the ground. Creative Europe helps to fund cultural projects, and co-produced feature films, while regional development funding and educational finance often finds its way to a variety of arts and cultural projects. The independent UK film sector has been particularly vocal about the importance of EU funding as seed money for projects, and believes that many features would not have been developed without it.

We should urge the UK government to join Creative Europe, and Eurimages, as a non-EU state post-Brexit

Country of Origin issues:

Tax, distribution, advertising placement, and other compliance issues for film, and possibly TV, product, could will be affected by whatever agreement is reached over country of origin with the EU and any other trade partners in bi-lateral free-trade deals.Currently features produced in the UK comply with EU rules, and in return can be moved freely across the EU. UK-produced TV programmes are defined as European by virtue of us being a signatory to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television, owned by the Council of Europe (not the EU), and once again there are rules on compliance. The status of film and TV product will depend on the (unknown) arrangements with trading partners post-Brexit.

TV channel playout, where the UK has a significant share of the EU market (well over 25%), depends at present on licences issued by Ofcom being valid throughout the EU. This flows from the AVMS Directive, and depending on arrangements post-Brexit there is a possibility that these licences will no longer be honoured in the EU, leading companies in the successful UK playout sector relocating to EU sites.

The AVMS also contains quotas for independent and EU-produced content, both on TV and online, some of which the UK has historically opposed, but provide a distribution outlet for a significant amount of UK-produced content.

Co-productions with EU countries are governed by the European Convention on Cinematographic Co-production, owned by the Council of Europe, and provided the UK remains a signatory, there should be no change to arrangements. Bi-lateral co-production treaties with other partners are held in the UK's name, and will remain unchanged, although the question of whether these will accord productions status as British films for EU purposes is not clear.

We should call for the necessary UK participation in non-EU bodies, and adopt whatever regulatory equivalence measures are needed, to ensure that activities affected by the country of origin issue can continue as normal.

Tax and state aid:

Depending on the arrangement with the EU post-Brexit, the rules surrounding the existing tax breaks for various cultural activities, and the restrictions on selective state aid, could be eased in future. However, anything approaching access to the single market will inevitably require regulatory equivalance under which the EU rules would continue to apply. Similarly, even if the UK were completely free from EU constraints, the issue of state aid to the cultural sector would likely feature in negotiations over bi-lateral free trade agreements.

One particular source of difficulty could be the USA, assuming a Trump administration is even willing to discuss yet another FTA, this time with the UK. Beginning with NAFTA in 1993 the USA has begun every FTA negotiation with partners (nearly a dozen over the period) with a demand that there should be no cultural exception, and that the sector should be under the same state aid and competition regime as the rest of the economy.

Copyright:

Some aspects of copyright are governed by EU Directives, most of which have been transposed into UK law. These include exceptions, copyright duration, and some aspects of intellectual property ownership online. The Brexit negotiations will start during the Digital Single Market initiative by the EC, and the UK appears to expect to be part of the discussions until actual departure from the EU. Concerns have been raised about loss of territoriality through pan-European licencing of AV products, although the latest drafts seem to pull back from the worst implementation of this, and the UK's independent film sector, the most-concerned voice in the debate, is confident of a positive outcome. Proposals on portability have also been less disruptive than feared.

However, it is not at all clear how exactly the many EU provisions on copyright will be adjudicated post-Brexit, nor is it clear whether we will participate in the Digital Single Market. Laws flowing from the Berne Convention and WIPO Treaty will be unchanged.

We should call for all EU Copyright laws to be transposed into UK statute.

Workers' rights:

Many existing workers' rights in the UK, particularly those affecting "workers" rather than "employees" flow directly from EU Directives. The government has said that there would be no erosion of these rights post-Brexit, but this is not a binding guarantee, and many Leave voices cited petty Brussels rules on employment and health and safety as a reason to vote against the EU.

One problem, even if all EU employment rules were transposed as written into UK law, is that application of many rights is determined by case law, both at UK and ECJ level, by reference to the Directives or other judgements in the ECJ. This will need to be taken into account if transposition into UK law ever happens.

We should call for EU employement laws to be transposed into UK law, taking account of precendents which have been set outside the UK, or in the context of non-UK legislation.

December 2016