EU Filmmakers welcome EU Commission Guidelines on collective agreements by solo self-employed people
FERA welcomes the EU Commission Guidelines on collective agreements by solo self-employed people adopted on September 29, which effectively protect the right of self-employed authors, including freelance directors, to bargain collectively.
Directors are in their vast majority freelancers with little to no access to social benefits. Data has shown that, already before the Covid-19 pandemic, European audiovisual authors’ median income was as low as it was unstable due to their systemic weak position in negotiating their individual contracts[1].
Directive 2019/790 on Copyright in the Digital Single Market addresses this imbalance by setting out new harmonized rights to achieve fair remuneration in exploitation contracts of authors and performers, and points to collective bargaining as an essential tool to exercise them efficiently.
The European Commission has now clarified that EU competition law can no longer be used to avoid collective negotiations between authors and their contractual counterparts: this will facilitate the conclusion of more collective agreements, better terms and legal certainty between our members and their contractual counterparts across Europe.
Further information:
- Guidelines in all EU languages: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52022XC0930%2802%29
- EU Commission press release and Q&A: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_5796
- European Survey on the remuneration of Audiovisual Authors