The European animation sector has the potential to flourish and build scale over the coming years and the European Commission has recognised the importance of this sector and facilitated discussions with the animation industry on the opportunities and challenges that the industry faces and on how best to promote and distribute animation works. The European Animation Plan is the result of these meetings, consultations and discussions with all the stakeholders involved, and reflects the views of industry players.
Representing Animation Ireland earlier in the year, Moe Honan, AI Board member and CEO of Moetion Films (below, second left) attended a panel presentation and discussion identifying the animation sector’s needs on January 30th in the EU Parliament, Brussels.
The animation industry has been supported over the past years through a wide range of schemes of Creative Europe MEDIA sub-programme, from co-production markets like MIFA Annecy, Cartoon Forum and Cartoon Movie to support for TV, development, distribution and market access.
The publication of the European Animation Plan (launched in September 2017) by the industry is an important step and comes at a very timely moment. This is one of the actions that were envisaged by the Communication “Promoting a fair, efficient and competitive European copyright-based economy in the Digital Single Market” that accompanied the Copyright reform.
One of the accompanying measures was aimed at placing a particular focus on the European animation sector. It was for this reason that the Commission launched a dialogue with the major European animation studios and interested stakeholders to discuss how this sector could scale up. Training needs, global trends in the field of animation, co-productions, promotion and other aspects impacting the marketplace were amongst the topics discussed.
The Commission is very pleased that these meetings, including a European Film Forum event at MIFA in Annecy in June 2017, have culminated in industry getting together to agree on a European Animation Plan.
This Animation Plan explores how the sector could upscale and identify the challenges it is confronted with. It identifies three objectives for the next five years particularly: to foster the global reach of EU animation; to make Europe an attractive workplace for European talent and talent from abroad and also to make access to finance easier.
The Commission will reflect on how best the MEDIA sub-programme can respond to these objectives not only in the current Creative Europe MEDIA sub-programme but also beyond 2020. By the end of this year, the European Commission will report to the European Parliament and Council on its mid-term evaluation of the current Creative Europe programme and will put forward recommendations to make the programme more impactful in the coming years up to 2020.
While there is no dedicated support scheme for animation in the Creative Europe MEDIA sub-programme, the sector has been supported over the past years through a wide range of schemes from co-production markets to support for TV, development, distribution and market access. This factsheet presents a few examples of success stories.
Moreover, the Commission has started a reflection on the future of the Creative Europe MEDIA beyond 2020 and the publication of this European Animation Plan is therefore timely in the context of the on-going dialogue with the audiovisual industry.
Source: European Commission; European Animation Plan.