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

The RTFCI presented its draft Action Plan to the CARICOM’s Council for Human and Social Development in 2012, although take-up of its recommendations has been very slow across the region. The CARICOM Heads of Government have not implemented legislative, policy and institutional responses and the prioritization of cultural policies on the ground across

all CARIFORUM States is not a given. Facilitating market access for entertainment services

As noted earlier, the market access commitments for entertainment services differ from one EU Member State to the other. For example, from the list of entertainment services covered, Austria has limited its commitments to authors and dance instructor services and Belgium has made no commitments at all for contractual service providers. Divergences among EU Member States are possible also with regard to the limitations of market access commitments for entertainment services – in particular the Economic Needs Test (ENT) and the specific qualifications required for contractual services suppliers from CARIFORUM States wishing to provide entertainment services in EUMember States. ENTs are required in all EU countries, with the exception of Slovenia; similarly, qualifications may be required in all Member States except Slovenia; in the case of Austria, advanced qualifications are required. The ENT is a well-known measure that functions as a safeguard for domestic markets andmay be used by regulatory authorities to limit the entry of service suppliers into amarket by taking existing local capacity into account first. Due to the lack of clear criteria, the ENTs make it difficult for CARIFORUM service suppliers to comply. As each Member State may use its own definitions, it may also be hard to navigate the EU regulatory environment. It must be stressed however that the ENTs were not implemented specifically by the EPA. Indeed, ENTs tend to be generically formulated in that they apply not only to entertainment services or to CARIFORUM States and that they have been generally applied without discrimination. Practice so far shows that the application of ENTs for entertainment services has not been overly stringent.

46 Culture in the CARIFORUM-EU EPA