Irish film fund proposal wins wide support

IRELAND'S compromise proposals on a European film guarantee fund won wide support at the meeting of culture ministers in Brussels…

IRELAND'S compromise proposals on a European film guarantee fund won wide support at the meeting of culture ministers in Brussels yesterday. The Minister for Arts Culture and the Gaeltacht, Mr Higgins, said that the proposals would establish a £54 million fund experimentally, initially for five years.

It would be up to the Dutch presidency to see the project through to fruition, he said. The discussion between ministers had been about the practical aspects of the fund rather than the principle which seemed to be getting acceptance, the Minister said.

The fund, it is proposed, would be established on a commercial basis and attempt to attract private investors. It would provide capital for film production on a joint basis with the private sector, with up to half the funding targeted at films with budgets of less than £3 million.

Mr Higgins also expressed delight that the ministers had agreed to back a motion calling for the mainstreaming of cultural issues in all EU programmes from tourism to cohesion policy. The Commission was asked to produce a report on the relationship between culture and jobs.

READ MORE

The motion, the outcome of Mr Higgins informal culture ministers' meeting in Galway in September, represents the first tentative attempt to give active meaning to a reference in the Maastricht Treaty to culture.

Ministers also sought a report from the Commission on the technical feasibility of the so-called "v-chip", the computer chip which allows parents to screen out violent films from their TVs.

Patrick Smyth

Patrick Smyth

Patrick Smyth is former Europe editor of The Irish Times