COMECON MEDIA

Link: Coronavirus and the European film industry

Written by Ivana Katsarova, EU Parliament Research Service

With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused the shutdown of some 70 000 cinemas in China, nearly 2 500 in the US and over 9 000 in the EU, the joy sparked by the success of the film industry in 2019 has quickly given way to anxiety. Shootings, premieres, spring festivals and entertainment events have faced near-total cancellation or postponement due to the pandemic, thus inflicting an estimated loss of US$5 billion on the global box office; this amount could skyrocket to between US$15 billion and US$17 billion, if cinemas do not reopen by the end of May 2020.

The EU film sector is essentially made up of small companies employing creative and technical freelancers, which makes it particularly vulnerable to the pandemic. The domino effect of the lockdown has triggered the immediate freeze of hundreds of projects in the shooting phase, disrupted cash flows and pushed …

Source: EU Parliament
21/4/2020
Support needed for media, with advertising revenues dropping as much as 80% Make sure EU support reaches culture SMEs, individual creators and charitiesCreate an emergency fund for media, earmark structural funds for culture, and beef up the guarantee instrument Additional EU action is needed to make sure EU help reaches the ravaged media and culture sectors, say EP Culture committee members.

The culture and creative sector in the EU - especially individual creators and SMEs - and the media sector are being decimated by the crisis.

The European Union must therefore do more to help those struggling sectors to get back on their feet, stress the members of the European Parliament’s Culture and Education Committee, in a letter to Commissioners Thierry Breton and Mariya Gabriel, sent on Monday.

Emergency support fund for media

The media and press sectors currently play a crucial role in providing accurate information and thorough reporting. They are a critical anti…

Answer to a written question - TikTok - E-003875/2019(ASW)
See question(s) : E-003875/2019
16 March 2020
E-003875/2019

Answer given by Mr Reynders
on behalf of the European Commission

Question reference: E-003875/2019

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)(1) applies to the processing of personal data in the context of the activities of an establishment of a controller or a processor in the Union, or to processing by a controller or processor not established in the Union where the processing activities are related to the offering of goods or services to individuals in the Union or the monitoring of their behaviour within the Union.

Where information society services process personal data of individuals in the EU on the basis of consent, they need to verify whether those individuals are children below the age of 16 years. Member States may provide by law for a lower age. In such case, information society services must make reasonable efforts to verify that consent is given or authorise…

The European Commission has approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the acquisition of sole control over Penguin Random House (“PRH”) of the US by Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA (“Bertelsmann”) of Germany. PRH is a media company active in trade publishing. Bertelsmann is active in television and television production, trade publishing, magazine publishing, and music rights management services. The Commission concluded that the proposed acquisition would raise no competition concerns, because Bertelsmann already holds 75% of PRH and the transaction merely implements a transition from joint to sole control, without introducing significant modifications of pre-existing competition. The transaction was examined under the simplified merger review procedure. More information is available on the Commission's competition website, in the public case register under the case number M.9710.