Ministers, personalities from various organizations (such as Irina Bokova, DG of UNESCO or Michaelle Jean, SG de l’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie) and countries (including EBU President, Jean Paul Philippot) and artists such as Jaco Van Dormael, Nabil Ayouch, Youssou N’Dour, Abderrahmane Sissako gathered in Mons on October 25 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the UNESCO convention on Cultural Diversity.
The International Forum of Mons , held at the local conference center, was the closing moment of a week end fully dedicated to the Cultural Diversity, to the Cultural Exception and at the International Treaty that safeguards these values.
It started on Friday with the world congress of FIDCC (International Federation of the Coalition for Cultural Diversity) that elected its new president on Saturday, and ended with the Sunday ministerial level event on the UNESCO Convention.
Why such an event now and in Mons ? Because there is an insidious temptative to circumvent the principles of the Cultural exception and the Cultural diversity convention with the excuse of the arrival of the Internet.
What is happening in various international for a (such as the TTIP negotiations or other bilateral trade treaties) is that certain governments are saying that measure to protect national cinema and TV industries or printed media or the music industry are justified only in the analogue world (movies when projected in the cinemas; TV programme when seen on air live; newspapers when are printed), but that when they are consumed on line they are simply subject to “electronic commerce” regulations and not anymore to the specific regulations that apply in the real world.
Against this approach, that found some interested ears even within Europe, the Belgian, French and Canadian governments have launched the initiative of Mons Forum. As Silvia Costa , president of the EU Parliament Committee on Culture, said on her speech: « une condition pour une politique culturelle est la capacité à combiner la valeur de la diversité culturelle et le dialogue interculturel et interreligieux à travers la contribution de l’éducation. ».
Jean Paul Philippot in his intervention underlined the need to ensure a « common level playing field » among all actors of the audiovisual panorama and entered in conflict with Netflix remembering that each single national broadcaster produces a lot more national contents that any foreign company could ever produce, simply because is made by nationals for nationals and tailormade on the real needs of the citizens.
At the end of the Mons Forum some declarations have been issued. The main one –approved by all participants to the Forum-is the “Final declaration of Mons” (see attachment n. 1). It was also accompanied by a franco-canadien declaration about the TTIP negotiations (attachment n. 2), by a declaration of the FIDCC International Federation of the Coalition for Cultural Diversity (see attachment n. 3) and ,last but not least, by a Franco-Italian declaration signed at Eurovisioni festival (attachment n. 4) and presented in Mons by its President, Michel Boyon.
These declarations exhort the Eu negociators at TTIP discussion table not to renounce to the principles subscribed in Paris in 2005, but –on the contrary- start from those to help to build a digital future based on the respect of the diversity, and not –as it seems today- on the global homologation of the cultural offers.
ANNEXES:
1 Final declaration of Mons
2 franco-canadien declaration about the TTIP negotiations
3 declaration of the FIDCC International Federation of the Coalition for Cultural Diversity