Status of Artists in Europe

AUTHORS/EDITORS

Suzanne Capiau and Andreas Wiesand in cooperation with Danielle Cliche and with the participation of Vesna Copic, Ritva Mitchell and national correspondents throughout Europe

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PUBLISHER/DATE

European Parliament, 2006

FUNDERS

European Parliament.

ABSTRACT

This study investigates innovative national measures and models aimed at improving the socio economic status of authors (e.g. writers or visual artists) and performing artists in Europe. It addresses five main areas: individual working and contract relations; professional representation; social security; taxation; and aspects of trans-national mobility. Special reports and profiles from several European countries and Canada are presented in the Annex.

This study concludes with a proposal to prepare a new European Parliament Resolution, which would update and expand upon its past resolutions and present a host of concrete and pragmatic measures, including those from the new Member States. This Resolution would invite the Council of Ministers to  recognise the importance of artists and their creative activities in the context of European integration and to adopt, together with the Parliament, a more formal Community Charter addressing the status of artists and the conditions for their creative work. This Charter should take account of previous initiatives by UNESCO and could also create links with the work already undertaken by other international organisations such as the ILO, WIPO or the Council of Europe, or by professional bodies and networks.

The study also recommends the creation of a Transveral Task Force to be charged with the preparation of a White Paper on Mobility in the Arts and Media as well as the creation of a  centralised Online Contact Point and information Guide providing practical, timely and detailed information on the status of artists, especially as concerns temporary workabroad.

Some of these recommendations were taken up in the "Gibault Report" and in a resolution of the European Parliament (2007), which led to further activities also by the European Commission and the Council in 2008 - including the study "Mobility Matters" carried out by the ERICarts Institute. Copyright and other legal issues have also been dealt with in the ERICarts conference on "Artists Rights" in Genoa, December 2004