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

Conclusion The CARIFORUM-EU EPA is unprecedented in its link to the 2005 Convention and in its attempt to include culture in a trade agreement. It is also the first agreement in which the EU grants market access commitments for the provision of entertainment services, including by natural persons and, through the PCC, for the preferential treatment of EU-Caribbean audiovisual co‑productions to foster cultural exchanges. Yet, it can be argued that the implementation efforts and results have not quite lived up to expectations. The challenges range from institutional and capacity constraints to legal complications, a lack of transparency in the conditions set out by individual States and failing links between implementing agencies, creative industry organizations and individual artists. There are many additional drawbacks, as the PCC does not foresee any specific financial commitment by the EU or its Member States for its implementation. The capacity of CARIFORUM States to implement the EPA remains constrained by the level of financial support provided under the European Development Fund (EDF) Caribbean Regional Indicative Programme (CRIP) from 2008 to 2020 as well as by EU policy on differentiation in development aid. Moreover, in the cultural domain, EU Member States have not proactively promoted EPA implementation. CARIFORUM States have struggled to make the best of opportunities created by the EPA. Overall and despite some exceptions, cultural policy reform and strategic industrial development have not been a priority for the region’s cultural ministries/agencies. The hope of transitioning from trade in traditional products, such as sugar and bananas, towards an appropriate and sustainable mobilization of the cultural industries as one of the region’s most promising commercial and tradeable asset bases, has not materialized 50 .

The CARIFORUM-EU EPA is unprecedented in its link to the 2005 Convention and in its attempt to include culture in a trade agreement

50. Ben Garner, in The politics of cultural development . Trade, cultural policy and the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity, Routledge, 2016, at 206; also SALISES/Nordicity (2017) Regional Strategic Plan for Cultural and Entertainment Services/Cultural Industries in CARICOM and CARIFORUM States. Prepared for CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown, Guyana.

69 Culture in the CARIFORUM-EU EPA