Impact Study: UNESCO-Aschberg Programme for Artists and Cultural Professionals

With regard to commercial presence (GATSmode 3, whereby a service is supplied through the establishment of the services provider in the country where the service is provided), 16 EU Member States, including all of the major traditional markets for Caribbean entertainers, such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, have granted preferential access to investors or entertainment services companies from the Caribbean. Caribbean companies can also obtain work visas for their managers or key personnel to work for their operations in an EU Member State for a period of up to 3 years (Article 81 – Key personnel and graduate trainees). The EPA also includes specific opportunities for Caribbean entertainers and other artists to travel to EU Member States in order to provide entertainment as Contractual Service Suppliers (CSS) (Article 83 – Contractual services suppliers and independent professionals). These are employees of a Caribbean company, which has no commercial presence or permanent office in the EU but has a contract to supply services to consumers in an EU Member State and which requires its employees to enter an EU country on a temporary basis to fulfil the contract. The scope is broad and Caribbean self-employed performing artists who create a company through which they provide their services, can be considered CSS and are thus covered by EU commitments. Twenty-seven EU Member States (all except Belgium) have granted such access for the entertainment sector, with some transition periods applied up to 2014. Access granted to Caribbean entertainers, artists and other cultural practitioners may be subject to qualification requirements and to economic needs tests (ENTs). Despite these additional conditions, it should be underscored that there is a comprehensive opening of the EU entertainment services sector for the temporary entry of natural persons. It does not include quotas for EU Member States and is legally binding. Furthermore, this level of market access in the entertainment sector – a sector that is part of the cultural domain and typically a sensitive policy area – has never been granted by this many EU Member States.

For the first time, the EU has committed to significantly opening its entertainment sector to services and service suppliers from CARIFORUM States

19 Culture in the CARIFORUM-EU EPA