Mr President, I should like to begin by expressing my thanks to the Commission, to Commissioner Reding and to the members of all the relevant parliamentary committees for their wholehearted cooperation, and also to the Council under the Portuguese and now the French presidency for their cooperation during this stage of the legislative process. We all share a common commitment to the MEDIA programme and its twin aims of strengthening the European film industry and creating sustainable jobs through the audiovisual growth engine. That is why it is important to realise that European companies have hitherto been totally underequipped with the audiovisual material that would have enabled them to keep pace with this development. The cross-border distribution of European films remains too limited. In the cinema industry, American films have cornered some 80% of the European market, while only 7% of the cinema films shown in the countries of Europe have been made in other European countries. About 74% of imported television feature films and series are from America, as against 14% from European countries. Against this background the MEDIA programme, following on from its predecessors, MEDIA I and MEDIA II, is expressly designed to address this deficit in the circulation of European works and has three main support targets: the training of professionals in the audiovisual programme industry through MEDIA-Training and the development and marketing of audiovisual works through the MEDIA Plus programme. What is new about the present programme phase is that it takes account of the online dimension of all audiovisual production and that it has introduced pilot projects on the use of digital technology. To that extent, Commissioner, I can speak for all the participating committees and, I hope, for the whole House when I say that we support the proposals you have presented and hope that they all come to fruition. I do wish to point out, however, that in some areas we have proposed amendments which we consider to be extremely important. The first of these, as so often, concerns the budget. The Commission is proposing EUR 400 million for a five-year programme in the audiovisual domain. Four hundred million was the budget proposed by the Commission back in 1995, and unfortunately the Council rejected that proposal. Whoever wants to grasp the opportunities offered by the digital revolution must be prepared to make the requisite investment. That is why the figure of 400 million is too low. The increase we are proposing is actually moderate; it would take the total budget to 550 million – 480 million for MEDIA Plus and 70 million for MEDIA- Training. This increase alone, however, will not bring spectacular success. We need two additional instruments. The first is linkage with other EU programmes, and the second is scope to inject venture capital into the private market; this is done as a matter of course in the United States, and we appeal to the Council and the Commission to work with us to ensure that it finally becomes reality in Europe too. The mobilisation of private capital is perhaps our key demand along with the pilot project relating to the European Investment Bank. The second area is the question of the legal basis. We know that this is a difficult question for the Commission, but it is our wish that the audiovisual programme should be based not only on Article 157 of the EC Treaty, the article concerning industry, but also on Article 151, which is devoted to culture. This should also be made clear in the programme and be reflected in the legal basis. Finally, let me just list some other important requirements. The transparency and efficiency of the programmes should be promoted, funds should be concentrated on SMEs, independent producers and the Member States with limited audiovisual production capacities, and they should benefit the smaller linguistic areas. Finally, my appeal to the Council and Commission is this: work with Parliament, so that together we can create a resolute lobby for European films. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE