Council Resolution

of 12 February 2001

on the application of national fixed book-price systems

(2001/C 73/03)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

1. RECALLING that the Community should take cultural aspects into account in its actions, in particular in order to respect and to promote the diversity of its culture;

2. RECALLING that in its Decision of 21 August 1997 and later in its Resolution of 8 February 1999, echoed by the Cologne European Council on 3 and 4 June 1999, it recognised the dual character of books as the bearers of cultural values and as merchandise, and the need for a balanced assessment of the cultural and economic aspects of books;

3. RECALLING the freedom of each Member State, in its policy on books and reading, to decide whether or not to apply a national statutory or contractual book-price system;

4. CONSIDERING the attachment of several Member States to national fixed-price systems for books, as a way of taking into account the specific cultural and economic character of books and of giving readers access, under optimum conditions, to the widest possible supply;

5. RECALLING the Decisions and the positions taken by the Commission on the subject, and particularly the letter dated 12 November 1998 from the Members of the Commission responsible for culture and for competition to the Ministers of Cultural Affairs;

6. TAKING NOTE of the proceedings of the Conference on the Book Market in the European Cultural Area held in Strasbourg on 29 and 30 September 2000, which helped to delve deeper into the singular nature of books, developments in their distribution, ways of regulating book markets and the impact of digital technology on their economic aspects;

7. REAFFIRMS that homogeneous linguistic areas are an important area for distributing books and add a cross-border dimension to the book market, which needs to be taken into account;

8. CONSIDERS that the emergence of e-commerce, changing the legal and economic landscape of the book sector, may extend the dissemination of books but may also affect, inter alia, existing national fixed book-price systems;

9. CONSIDERS that, under these circumstances, achieving the cultural objectives pursued by the existing national fixed book-price systems requires account to be taken of the cross-border dimension of certain book markets, in accordance with Community law;

INVITES THE COMMISSION:

(a) when applying competition rules and rules on the free movement of goods, to take account of the specific value of the book as a cultural object and the importance of books in promoting cultural diversity, and of the cross-border dimension of the book market;

(b) when examining national rules and agreements on fixed book prices, insofar as they affect trade between the Member States, to pay particular attention to:

- the risk of the development of evasion,

- the consequences of the development of e-commerce,

- questions relating to imports between countries practising fixed book-price systems.