Council of the European Union: Agreement on Media Plus Programme (2001-2005)

IRIS 2001-1:1/3

Susanne Nikoltchev

European Audiovisual Observatory

On 23 November 2000, the Council of the European Union (Cultural/Audiovisual Affairs) approved the Media Plus Programme. On the basis of the European Commission's proposal of 14 December 1999 for a training programme for professionals in the European audiovisual programme industry on the one hand, and for a programme to encourage the development, distribution and promotion of European audiovisual works on the other (see IRIS 2000-1: 6), the Council has now reached agreement on the financial aspects, in particular, of Media Plus. The whole programme will be allocated a budget of EUR 400 million, of which EUR 350 million is for the development, distribution and promotion section and EUR 50 million for the training section. It is envisaged that 57% will go to distribution, 20% to development and 8.5% to promotion. Around 5% will support pilot projects and 9% to horizontal measures (particularly Media Desks in the Member States).

While the training part of the programme must first be approved at its second reading by the European Parliament, the Council will be able to adopt the development section at one of its forthcoming sessions. Media Plus will replace the Media II Programme (IRIS 1995-2:12 and IRIS 1995-3:10), which expired at the end of 2000 and which had a total budget of EUR 310 million.