On the occasion of the Franco-German Council of Ministers held in Paris on 19 February, the Ministers in charge of Culture, Aurélie Filippetti and Monika Grütters, discussed at length the future of books in Europe.
They adopted a Joint Declaration which calls for a rapid commitment at European level to a collective exchange on books and the challenges posed by the digital transition in this cultural industry where Europe has considerable assets.
Then that the market du book digital knows a development constant in the space of the Union, France and Germany share the desire to preserve the balance of the book chain and the diversity of creation, while promoting renewed access to works through digital.
The European Union must also have a global and coherent vision of the economic and cultural challenges of books.
France and Germany request that this commitment be translated into:
- recognition of the soundness of national regulations for the Digital Book Award;
- by the possibility of applying a reduced VAT rate for the e-book but also for the online press;
- by creating a vast space for the circulation of works on networks, structured by cross-border diffusion models, technologies and interoperable standards for readers.
Both ministers invite Member States to join their initiative and call for the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Presidency of the Council of the European Union to take full account of the importance of the cultural, industrial and economic stakes of the book in the digital age to make it a priority in their work programme from 2014.