Trade, development and the cultural sector: An impossible nexus?

The audiovisual exception in multilateral and bilateral trade agreements entered into by the EU with third countries has been customary. The story of the EU cultural battle fought in the WTO is well-told and it was meant to restrain the impact of trade liberalization on cultural diversity. Following the UNESCO Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions, the EU has developed novel approaches on culture in its external economic relations, covering the audiovisual sector. The integration of a cultural cooperation protocol in the EU-Cariforum EPA in 2008 was a first attempt to implement preferential treatment for the cultural sector of developing countries. However, this was not systematic. In other cases, cultural cooperation with developing countries was addressed through agreements other than EPAs, like association and cultural cooperation agreements. This confirmed the unease of addressing culture and the audiovisual sector within a trade-related framework, despite the EU-Cariforum EPA having a genuine development perspective, shown, amongst others, in preferential access to the EU market granted to EU-Cariforum audiovisual co-productions. Since then, the practice of cultural cooperation protocols has withered but EU cultural cooperation with developing countries is ongoing through other instruments. Global Europe, as its precursor, the Development Cooperation Instrument, funds a range of activities with a cultural cooperation component. This paper explores the evolution of the Union’s development cooperation policy in the field of culture. It examines the efforts made by the EU and the challenges faced in the ways of embedding culture in trade-related agreements and traces policy orientation towards supporting cultural cooperation with developing countries through funding. Such orientation might be better suited for boosting the effectiveness of EU cultural cooperation with developing countries.