PRESS RELEASE

Brus­sels, 2 Feb­ru­ary, 2015

Rep­res­ent­ing 10,000 lit­er­ary trans­lat­ors in 29 European coun­tries, CEATL urges the parties respons­ible for the ongo­ing Transat­lantic Trade and Invest­ment Part­ner­ship (TTIP) nego­ti­ations between the European Uni­on and the United States of Amer­ica to pay atten­tion to the fol­low­ing issues of con­cern to every­one with a stake in European lit­er­at­ures and the cul­tur­al val­ues they con­sti­tute:

• Pub­lish­ing is not covered by the so-called “cul­tur­al excep­tion”and is there­fore part of the man­date of TTIP nego­ti­at­ors
• This poses a threat to Europe’s pub­lish­ing and lit­er­at­ure since TTIP will tol­er­ate con­tin­ued cul­tur­al pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion meas­ures only if these are non-discriminatory. Pub­lic sub­sidies to the book sec­tor, but also fixed book price and pub­lic lend­ing right policies could then be jeop­ard­ized.

CEATL there­fore calls for the inclu­sion of the book sec­tor among the cul­tur­al sec­tors exemp­ted from the TTIP agree­ment. It also urges the Com­mis­sion to uphold the leg­al­ity of nation­al pro­mo­tions and sub­sidies for lit­er­at­ure in much more unequi­voc­al terms.