Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, I associate myself entirely with the words of praise that have been showered on this report and shall come to the point without further ado. We are now entering the third round of support programmes for European films, and this support remains absolutely vital, for the European audiovisual industry has undoubtedly been in crisis for quite a long time. The following evidence may be added to what we have already heard. About one in three of the films made in the EU is never shown in a cinema, and a large percentage of those that do make it into the cinema are watched by a total audience of fewer than 130 000. A film will not normally start to yield a return on the initial investment until a million cinemagoers have paid to watch it. Only one-fifth of European films ever leave their home country; of those that do, nine-tenths go no further than neighbouring European countries. One of the strengths of the European film industry also accounts for its structural weakness. Low-budget productions in the tradition of the film d'auteur often cannot be made without the aid of national support funds and frequently appeal to a limited audience of young intellectuals. During production and afterwards, an adequate promotion and marketing budget is generally lacking. Cultural and linguistic diversity are matchless assets but sadly often stand in the way of widespread distribution. Great though the dream of conquering the U.S. film market may be, let us keep our feet on the European ground! We must not neglect to strengthen our national markets, and we need to do more to develop the European market more effectively. If some laurels can be reaped along the way, so much the better! Competitiveness and marketability are commendable aims of MEDIA Plus. The programme draws on the lessons learned from the experience of the preceding programmes, but although the Council and the Commission are well aware of the present situation, they are still afraid to take the plunge. Big cinema needs big money. One of the lessons that has been learned is that capping production costs as a condition of support is an obstacle to the creation of good films. The funding of support programmes is not the only issue here. There is also the question of allowing the provision of venture capital. Here we are confronted with a sorry state of affairs. European companies and banks do invest considerable sums of money in the programme industry, but they tend to invest in America rather than Europe. That is why, back in 1995, the Green Paper on strategy options to strengthen the European programme industry in the context of the audiovisual policy of the European Union proposed the establishment of a European guarantee fund, which the Council stubbornly rejected – the German Government, sad to say, being the foremost opponent of the scheme – without offering an alternative solution. This report therefore marks a new attempt to put this financial instrument on the agenda as an accompanying measure. In Germany there is a new Government, which will not necessarily feel that it would lose face by reversing the rejectionist stance of its predecessor, so perhaps we can now hope for a more conciliatory response. Last but not least, we must not forget the television companies, which act as the driving force of the programme industry by investing large sums of money in audiovisual productions and by providing opportunities for the transmission of audiovisual works. A key role attaches to the public corporations in particular. They possess a wealth of human and material resources, which are often the prerequisite for successful productions.

Political group: PSE