TRADE-AMERICAS: Culture is Not Negotiable

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo González*

SANTIAGO, May 28 2003 (IPS) - Many in Latin America argue that cultural products are not just another form of merchandise. But that premise is rarely applied when governments in the region negotiate free trade deals.

The issue has been avoided so far in the talks on the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), despite the fact that many Latin Americans fear that the Washington-promoted free trade agreement will lead to even greater U.S. cultural penetration in the region.

”The FTAA will essentially be focused on trade, and aspects that can generate disputes, such as the question of culture, will be negotiated in other forums, like the WTO (World Trade Organisation),” Germán de la Reza, an expert on integration issues at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told IPS.

But strict compliance with WTO provisions is resisted by small countries in the hemisphere, which ”would not be able to compete on an equal footing if their markets were opened indiscriminately in vital areas, like the recording and film industries,” said Antonio Romero, coordinator of the Caracas-based Latin American Economic System (SELA).

Chilean filmmaker Miguel Littín pointed out to IPS that free trade accords threaten culture, because ”the small morsels of assistance” that states currently earmark for the development of the arts will run the risk of disappearing altogether, as they will be labelled ”forms of protectionism.”

The FTAA will create a vast free trade zone encompassing 34 nations in the hemisphere – every country except Cuba. The negotiations are scheduled to conclude in January 2005, and the agreement is to go into effect in late 2005 or early 2006, once it is ratified by the legislatures of each member nation.

The enormous assymetries involved in the process, which will associate small Caribbean island states and impoverished Latin American countries with the world’s leading economic and military power, make the negotiations on questions of culture even more complex.

Trade accords in the era of globalisation cover a broad range of cultural aspects, from the easing of tariffs on the inputs used by the recording and film industries to the coverage of artistic creations by intellectual property rules.

Concerns also arise regarding the preservation of the artistic and cultural heritage of nations, which is threatened by the growing concentration of the mass media in the hands of transnational news, show business and entertainment conglomerates.

”Culture, and film in particular, is not just another product,” Assunçao Hernández, president of the Brazilian Congress of Film and the Sao Paulo Film Industry Union, said in an interview. ”It is inextricably linked to the identity of a nation; it forms, and forms part of, the national imaginary.”

In the view of Chilean writer Pía Barros, ”the problem of globalisation is that rubbish is also globalised, and that means we have to ask ourselves what is culture. Free trade treaties talk about doing commerce with cultural products, and I don’t agree with that.

”We can have government policies aimed at a country’s cultural development, but culture is not a negotiable asset that can belong to a government. Culture must be given preferential treatment, but by all countries, in order to establish cultural interaction with the rest,” she commented to IPS.

On this front, as in all areas to be discussed as part of the FTAA process, Brazil wants Latin America to take a united stand, in order to strengthen the region’s bargaining position in negotiations with the United States.

Brazilian Culture Minister and world-famous musician Gilberto Gil waved the banner of cultural integration on a visit to Chile early this month. But little has been done as of yet.

For now, Brazil is not assuming any commitment on culture in the trade negotiations, a source at Brazil’s Foreign Ministry told IPS, adding that his country was ”not offering or asking for anything, and thus is not proposing any modifications of the current norms in the WTO.”

The Southern Common Market (Mercosur) trade bloc, created in 1991 by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, has generated more rhetoric than actual progress in terms of cultural integration, said Antonio Mercader, who served two stints as education minister of Uruguay in the past 12 years.

There are useful suggestions and interesting plans, but the four countries took their biggest step forward in that area when they chose the same TV broadcasting standard, decades before the bloc was created, he said.

The European Union, which signed a free trade and integration agreement with Chile and is negotiating a similar framework accord with the Mercosur, pledged to promote investment and technology transfer in the field of culture, while ensuring ”the adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights.”

Chile adopted more or less similar criteria in its free trade treaty with the United States, which President George W. Bush is expected to send to Congress for approval within the next two months, according to Chilean Foreign Minister Soledad Alvear.

In agreement with the Chilean Coalition for Cultural Diversity, made up of filmmakers and others involved in the culture industry, Santiago proposed ”a broad reservation on culture, arguing that cultural products should not be treated as just another form of merchandise,” said Osvaldo Rosales, the head of the country’s negotiating team.

That reservation, which was inserted into the free trade accord’s chapters on services and investment, will allow Chile, for example, to reach cultural cooperation agreements in the future with whomsoever it pleases, he underlined.

The free trade treaty between Chile and the United States also foresees a gradual lifting of tariffs on inputs for cultural products, as well as copyright protection in the chapter on intellectual property, Rosales explained.

In addition, all agreements on culture within the scope of the free trade accord must be in line with WTO norms, he said.

By contrast, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which links Canada, Mexico and the United States, has no special chapter on culture, and merely stipulates that each member nation will apply its own copyright laws.

The mechanism of the ”reservation on culture” is also of interest to filmmakers in Brazil, who are pushing for greater diversity in the films that are imported, given that 90 percent of the movies shown in cinemas and on TV in Brazil currently come from the United States.

Littín is also in favour of exceptions for culture in free trade treaties, and advocates effective integration in Latin America.

”For over 30 years we have been fighting for what we call ‘the Common Market of Latin American Art’, especially with respect to the ‘industrial’ arts – film, TV and video,” he pointed out.

The idea is that ”every film made in one of the countries of Latin America would have the same ‘nationality’ and could move from country to country, from market to market, without paying duties or taxes,” said the filmmaker.

”That, in conjunction with a broader initiative which would include Latin countries in Europe, would be the only way to establish a more favourable balance in the face of the hegemony over the media that the Anglo-Saxon industry currently enjoys,” Littín argued.

* Diego Cevallos (Mexico), Humberto Márquez (Venezuela), Mario Osava (Brazil) and Marcelo Pereira (Uruguay) contributed to this report.