The audiovisual business decently assists the protagonism that in its next sectoral law they have acquired government concessions to nationalist parties to rub the approval of the General State Budgets (PGE). The minimum of 6% for Catalan, Galician or Basque required in the offer of the Streaming Services catalog is unrealizable according to the legal reports of the sector to which the world has accessed. "Or have cheated ERC or this game has been borrowed into deception," says one director of one of the affected operators.
The new regulation is the transposition of the European audiovisual directive, general obligations to which those specified by each country can be added. However, the legal services of the audiovisual sector are pointed out that national legislation would only be applicable for operators based in each country, not for those who have their headquarters in another different, no matter how much they also provide service in the nation of Turn where it is legislated. The so-called principle of country of origin, by which an operator is attempted to the law of the country of its main headquarters and not the one of all in which it is present, would result in Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime Video or Disney + of Assume the commitment acquired by the executive and ERC.
Gabriel Rufián, spokesman for the Republicans in Congress, managed to capitalize on Tuesday this agreement by announcing it at a press conference within the lower house, where he recognized the "media focus" of the audiovisual matter and showed his satisfaction for having complied with the promise That his party "was going to get quotas and incentives". This Thursday, in fact, Congress approved an amendment to the PGE project to allocate 10.5 million audiovisual work in Catalan, Basque and Galician, after a covenant with ERC, Bildu and BNG.
The audiovisual law that is currently governing, from 2010, does not mark any minimum audiovisual content in co-official languages, as is the case of Catalan. And neither had it progressed in that sense in the known preliminary drafts of the new law, one of the end of last year and July of July. A third text had been referred to the Council of State, in which this obligation was not accommodated either. Therefore, the Agreement of the Government and ERC skips as long as it had been agreed in that regard during the two processes of public consultation for the elaboration of the standard, compilation of viewers in which Netflix and other similar companies did intervene. "We can not comment or judicialize a matter on which we do not have data," they assure from one of the American Streaming giants asked by this newspaper: "From this 6% have not been talked about when they have asked for an opinion on the law , and these conversations have lasted years. "
Indeed, the European Directive dates from November 2018 and in January 2019, the Government opened a period of public consultation, in which giants have participated as Netflix. These would now be at the expense of the political pacts that serve to prop up the approval of the budgets of the current coalition government.
As explained from the economic ministry that Nadia Calviño leads, in the new audiovisual law there will be an obligation to dedicate 30% of the catalog of services on demand to the work of European origin, a criterion that comes from Brussels and would not admit Legal discussion. The Spanish standard also foresees that 50% of that 30% (15%) are dedicated to films, series or documentaries in official languages of the State. To meet nationalist requests, Spanish legislation would also establish that 40% of that 15% of the content presented (the aforementioned 6%) are dedicated to official languages other than Spanish, as is the case of Catalan.
This purpose of difficult application would mean that in the company catalog as Netflix, if it offered 10 Spanish works, 6 would be included in Spanish and 4 in other languages such as Catalan, Euskera or Galician. That Californian giant, specifically, has a large production center in Tres Cantos (Madrid) and has in Latin American lands one of its main markets.
Given these circumstances, the legal sources consulted estimates that the law will be introduced this 6%, it would have a limited route in the event that US operators decided to judicialize the obligation. Of course, private domestic operators such as services on demand Movistar +, Vodafone TV, Orange TV, Filmin, Flixolé, Atresplayer or Mitele would have to fulfill this burden from now on, in addition to those that have already been assuming.
In addition, the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA) must allocate 10% of the Fund for the Protection of Cinematography to produce in Catalan, Galician and Basque, which will inevitably reduce the share of impetus to cinema in Castilian language. Rufian was in charge of announcing it.
Date Of Update: 25 November 2021, 20:39
