Presentation by President of the Government of Spain of "Spain Audio-visual Hub" Plan

Doré Cinema, Madrid

Good day, Vice-President of the Government, ministers, public officials and also all those representatives from the audio-visual sector present here.

Firstly, I would like to stress that this event and this Plan presented here today to society is the result of many months of talks with the sector. Hence, I would like to thank the industry's contribution to the public sector, whereby we have seen first-hand its needs, its strengths and weaknesses, its vision in the medium and long term, and consequently, the transformation and the milestones that we must also push through from the public sector.

And secondly, I would like, before starting this speech, to also acknowledge that this work has involved a large number of ministerial departments and people who have not taken this podium, but are present here at this event. I can see the Under-secretary for Culture, the State Secretary for Digital Transition. There are departments that are not represented at this event but which have also contributed to making the Plan possible. I am thinking, for example of the Ministries of Education, and of Foreign Affairs when we talk about visas, and also about the Ministry of the Treasury. The Treasury is always involved in everything, which is fortunate, including in this case, and hence I feel that it is only fair to recognise that this has been a project carried out over many months, believe me, since we started to talk about it, even before the pandemic. And secondly, I would like to also acknowledge the leadership of the ministers present here, above all the Vice-President for the Digital Transition, for Economic Affairs and Digital Transition, because it is thanks to her that this type of event and this Plan have seen the light of day, in such a powerful and important fashion from the point of view of the resources that will be allocated.

Please also allow me to acknowledge the work of Isabel Coixet, who I hope will soon recover from COVID-19, which paves the way for passing on our recognition, our solidarity and our hopes that so many thousands of our fellow countrymen also recover from COVID-19, along with those people abroad suffering from the disease.

And recall that, regardless of the fact, as Mariano rightly reminded us earlier, that we are in a vaccination process that, by the way, in this second quarter will exponentially increase the number of doses to be administered and hence save many lives and protect many vulnerable groups as from the second quarter of the year, it is clear that we must not drop our guard, above all during Easter, which is about to begin. Hence, I would also like to remember that it is very important for all our citizens to follow the rules set by the health authorities.

Just look, this month of March marks a year since the state of emergency was declared for the first time in response to a virus that was at that time unfamiliar to science. This continues to be the case, to a large extent, but back then it was absolutely unknown. We heard some rumours of what was going to reach us from China. This was a government that had just begun to operate a few weeks earlier, which then had to address and tackle this health emergency which has had a clear and a tremendous socio-economic impact on our lives, not just in Spain and in Europe, but on the whole of Mankind.

And indeed, this pandemic and the response we have had to set in motion have changed a great many of our habits and the behaviour of the whole world. The harsh lockdown during which I remember the first videos that went viral taken in March last year, which were even funny, on spending a week or two at home, getting to know and recognise your own house, and then forging family ties that became stronger as a result of these strict lockdowns that we had to impose.

I always say when asked the toughest decision that I have had to take as President of the Government, it was clearly to say to our people a year ago that they had to stay at home to protect themselves and also to protect their loved ones. No President of the Government, no leader, ever wants to close down the whole country, the whole economy, to save lives and defend everyone's public health.

The lockdown, as I said before, has changed the way we relate. We can clearly see that in our sons and daughters. And also in our perception of reality, the vulnerabilities we face as Westerners, in our belief that we were not vulnerable to death, how good it was that pandemics happened in countries that did not enjoy the levels of economic development in the West. And we clearly also have our own consumer habits and our work methodologies. That is why this government also had to approve, and it was one of the first governments to approve, a Remote Working Act because we had to regulate a phenomenon that had not previously existed, or at least in a way that affected us as much as now.

But, above all, the pandemic modified, and this has been mentioned by the representatives of the audio-visual sector, and also by the ministers and the Vice-President of the Government, our way to inform and entertain ourselves. This probably did not modify this but rather speeded up this transition that we could see was needed before the pandemic. The audio-visual industry played and continues to play an essential role in this pandemic. There are thousands of professionals from the audio-visual media that accompanied us each day, either through information, which was very important at that time to precisely understand what was happening in the world due to the virus, or through entertainment programmes or entertainment content, which also served to escape from a reality that asphyxiated us on many occasions when at home, facing an absolute unknown entity. The plethora of series and films that allowed our imaginations to run riot, the talent, the audio-visual creativity… allowed us to travel, to continue dreaming, which is very important for societies, to create horizons and hopes, to motivate us through dreams and create and build without leaving home.

And that is the great paradox. And I believe, in all honesty, that the audio-visual sector deserves to receive a warm tribute from all of society, beginning with its government. That is why, firstly, I would like to express my profound gratitude for everything that the audio-visual sector has done during these long months of lockdown, above all at the most difficult and toughest times of the lockdown.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of your efforts is that this was an effort without any clear protagonist, that was visible and with any counterparts, of which there were few, in terms of the efforts at creation and production - as you have rightly mentioned - deployed.

And furthermore, you, the professionals of the audio-visual sector, were assuredly going, like the rest of Spain, through the worst moments. Some companies that were very competitive before the start of the pandemic and yet have been put at risk and, unfortunately, many have died - they have been unable to overcome this crisis and the economic impact it has had on us.

Just look, as a citizen, I would like to thank you for what you have done, and as President of the Government, I feel that this is also an event - and the work you have been doing and developed by you during these months of the pandemic - I would like to convey to you that we are under an obligation and a duty to help repair the serious problems your sector is facing as a result of the pandemic, and also understand the challenges you need to address, the transformations and modernisation that you have to undertake and how the public sector, either through enacting legislation or through public resources, which fortunately have been brought to us under this great agreement we achieved in July 2020 through the recovery funds, this great Marshall Plan that Spain has always advocated and headed up together with other European countries on the European Council. And one of the main economic mainstays of your industry, as mentioned here before - I think the Minister for Industry said this, Minister Moroto - advertising, has suffered an unprecedented decline which has placed operators in serious difficulties to remain afloat.

Probably some of these things we already saw coming before the pandemic, but it is clear that they have speeded up as a result of it. The obligation to reduce production costs has caused a significant decline in activity which unfortunately still persists.

Cinemas - just like this one - were forced to close and even now have been unable to return to normal operating conditions, despite all the efforts being made by the sector, and I would also like to acknowledge the work of the Minister for Culture in this regard. In principle, the filming of feature films and series was suspended and it is only now that they are going to resume their activity, but a long way from the level of activity they enjoyed before the outbreak of this pandemic.

They have also suffered serious consequences. And here - the President, Mariano Barroso, mentioned this before, the serious consequences for actors and actresses as a result of this pandemic - I would like to give you a figure that I precisely shared the other day with Minister Uribes and which clearly grabbed my attention, albeit negatively, of course.

And that is, according to a recent study published by AISGE, the slowdown of the sector has meant that no more and no less than 97% of them, of actors and actresses, did not obtain sufficient income to earn a living from the profession, which is clearly frustrating for the men and women who have a great vocation, aside from shining in the exercise and performance of their profession, of their trade.

This is undoubtedly the right time to offer solutions, not to merely diagnose, and clearly the pandemic has cast a shadow over the industry, without offering solutions, a horizon, hope, a vision of what may be and what this audio-visual sector can aspire to in a country that appreciated, and moreover, recognise the competitiveness and prosperity that the audio-visual sector can create in our country.

This coalition government I have the honour of heading up sees the cultural industries as one of its main priorities, as one of its indisputable priorities. I remember that when we were drawing up the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan - which is a name that is perhaps not very enticing, but which has many aspects hidden behind it, because transformation clearly leads to the resilience of our economies and resilience is an increasingly more important attribute, not just in politics but also in all walks of life, above all in these vulnerable and uncertain contexts we face and clearly in the recovery - we spoke at that time about the cross-cutting pillars that would explain our way of understanding the recovery, the transformation, and consequently, the resilience.

And we spoke and appreciated - the Vice-President for Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation said this earlier - that clearly the digital transition and the ecological transition were the two great vectors of transformation that have speeded up as a result of the pandemic, but which could be seen even before that to explain, to a great extent, the competitiveness and economic growth and the capacity to create jobs in a host of sectors.

What is important is not only appreciating that these are indeed the two great vectors that explain the economic reconversion that we will undertake over the coming years and decades. A reconversion that I am convinced will be successful. We must incorporate a triple integrating scope that Isabel Coixet reminded me of when she spoke about the gender perspective.

We said that there would be no growth or prosperity without transformation, and that this needed to be deployed throughout the whole of the country to tackle what we call the demographic challenge. And also that this recovery cannot just benefit 1% of the population, but must benefit 99% of the population.

The digital and ecological transitions cannot be done behind the backs of our people. They must be done with the consensus and active participation and leadership not just of companies, but also of workers and groups, even the most vulnerable or those that have become more vulnerable as a result of the crisis.

And also the gender perspective, because we appreciate today's figures that clearly show how women have been hit the hardest, as has the audio-visual sector, which unfortunately are now suffering from the worst impact of the pandemic.

And we not only explained these four cross-cutting pillars that would impregnate each and every one of the guiding policies that we would set in motion, but we also decided, and this was a decision shared with the sector, that culture and sport had to be one of the pillars of this transformation. And we placed this on the same level as science and health. We placed this on the same level as the automotive sector, the mobility sector and urban regeneration and renewal.

Because when we speak about reindustrialisation, and there is a lot of talk in Europe at the moment about strategic autonomy, of whether we have to manufacture face masks or not, whether we have to manufacture respirators or not, whether we have to manufacture and create the conditions to produce our own vaccines, so as not to depend on other countries, as happened to us at the start of the pandemic, when we had to send planes to China to be able to guarantee and supply PPE to those health professionals on the front line.

But it is also clear that when we speak about reindustrialisation we must also speak about the industrialisation and reindustrialisation of such an important sector as culture. And if you will allow me, also as sport in our country, because this creates a great many jobs, not just the obvious ones, while highlighting all the identities, as was rightly said before, of our country.

Hence, I want to say to you that through these 140 billion euros that we will disburse, or through these European funds over the next six years, to give us an idea, the structural funds we received in the past amounted to 8 billion euros over six years. We now have 140 billion euros.

And this is the case because Europe understood this was needed, and I feel that Spain played a leading role, a fundamental role in this. And I want to recognise the work of the Vice-President of the Government in this matter as well. She appreciated that we need to find a positive response to this crisis; not just from a point of view of integration, but also from the point of view of using a great many public resources to attract private resources and take this leap of modernisation and competitiveness through the digital and ecological transitions.

I feel that the Vice-President of the Government for Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation understands that among the priority lines of action we must address the technological revolution that particularly affects the world of communication and the media. That is why today, it gives me great satisfaction to present the first step in this direction, related to the audio-visual sector.

The government, as you know, has approved an initial plan to boost the audio-visual sector, which we have baptised under the name of Spain: European Audio-visual Hub. We have this ambition because we firmly believe we are right to forge ahead with our aspiration.

The Plan to boost the audio-visual sector that we present today is based on the strengths, as has been mentioned here, of this sector. Our creativity, and this has also been mentioned here, is world-renowned. The professionalism, the trade of the audio-visual sector, is clearly extraordinary in our country. The brilliance of the professionals gives credibility to all segments of activity.

The importance of this strategic sector, or better put, of the audio-visual sector and its strategic importance, is acknowledged, as was rightly said by Vice-President of the Government Calviño, within the Digital Spain 2025 Strategy, which we have been presenting over recent months to society in different areas, in different formats and to the sectors affected. And the measures of the Spain: European Audio-visual Hub Plan set out the actions necessary to comply with this goal in regard to the sector.

Today, audio-visual communication is more global than ever before. This is obvious, it is multiple and it is interactive. We enjoy this at the same time as we use other mobile platforms, to which we must add the incredible technology capacity achieved.

These are just some of the characteristics that show the numerous channels and paths of evolution that digitalisation is opening up for your industry. I believe that this crisis is clearly different to others before, because we are talking about a pandemic, a health emergency. As is the response being given by the Government of Spain and particularly in Europe.

This time we have a tremendous opportunity. And on this matter, I wish to also convey my excitement, my hope and my firm conviction.

We have a tremendous opportunity to recover our economy, but not just to recover our economy to build things that worked before, but also to transform it by interpreting the reality the world is facing, in terms of both the present and the future.

The boost from Europe, I feel, this time allows whole sectors of our economy not just to recover but to transform and improve and take this necessary leap of competitiveness to address these intense transitions in time which are also so disruptive in many areas, not just from an economic perspective but also from a social perspective.

In our opinion, this is the case of your industry, the audio-visual industry. You have told us this on many occasions. We have the chance and the obligation not to waste the opportunity we have. We must build a sustainable ecosystem, that is richer and more fruitful, that leads to the growth that the tremendous talent of our industry deserves.

The Spanish audio-visual industry enjoys tremendous recognition worldwide, which has been mentioned here by the speakers.

Powerful international platforms have harnessed productions created by Spanish script-writers, Spanish actors and actresses, recorded in Spanish facilities to show the world the quality of our industry. And it is indisputable that these audio-visual productions can compete with those of the main powers that have traditionally dominated this sector since its birth.

However, I also wanted to share with you that the complex disruption of the global communication market forces us to rethink some questions of our industrial model.

We will promote, in this regard, the changes necessary to convert our country into one of the main audio-visual production centres in Europe and globally. It is not just a question of attracting foreign investment, although that is obviously welcome, but also of creating the powers to further enhance Spanish production in the audio-visual sector.

We must also be capable of building a new ecosystem that makes the activity of our script-writers, actors, actresses, technicians, directors and producers possible to create audio-visual works that represent our cultural values and can then be spread around the whole world.

And this means that we will boost our own industry, our own industrial model, that of Spain and Europe. Because this is also one of the main lessons we must take away from this world that has changed so radically, and was already changing before the pandemic.

And to make this new ecosystem a reality, we need the model to be sustainable. It must be profitable. And you, who come from this world, from this business of numbers also know how difficult this is.

But what is necessary and essential must also be profitable, capable of supplying itself and of growing as a source of wealth. We are going to achieve the reconciliation between the expressive vocation of our creators and their conversion in competitive and profitable industrial products. We must commit to the industrialisation and modernisation of the whole cultural sector in our country.

That is how culture and the industry are created. And these two areas, for me, are very important to tie into each other in this context. And to push through this aspiration, we want to address three goals.

The first of these is to ensure that our market is capable of absorbing this growth in production.

Some of you have mentioned this to me in private talks we have had over recent months. Hence, we need operators to have the chance of making these investments profitable. We believe that it is possible to bolster our windows for digital distribution, which address a new financial exploitation that is perfectly compatible and complementary to the activity of traditional operators. They can also take part in this progress. This is the great benefit offered by digitalisation.

Together with this first goal comes the second. We must facilitate the way for our products to travel beyond our borders to take root in other markets that have shown a clear interest in our production.

And thirdly, a new robust industry, with a dearth of extraordinary and qualified professionals and robust infrastructures that have the extraordinary chance to welcome foreign productions in our country that need a place to work with the highest technological standards, as we saw in the videos earlier.

I believe the Plan we are presenting implies many things. It also has, as the Vice-President of the Government mentioned before, a clear and unequivocal quantification of what this project we are presenting here today amounts to for the Government of Spain: 1.6 billion euros over practically five years from 2021 to 2025.

These financial resources will obviously be provided under the National Budget from the European funds, primarily from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Fund, but also from the European Regional Development Fund of the Creative Europe Programme for the period 2021-2027.

In short, the public sector will get down to work to channel and structure these resources so that you can take this leap in competitiveness that such an important sector for our country deserves.

The whole architecture of the transformation project of our audio-visual industry into a genuine European audio-visual hub is focused on six commitments that I would like to publically spell out.

The first of these is that, as was rightly mentioned here, we want to see more productions. This can only be explained if we want to produce more. We are going to considerably increase the number of hours of Spanish audio-visual content, wholly produced by Spanish companies.

Secondly, we want more digital, distribution and commercialisation windows that, in turn, boost the activities of traditional operators. I repeat, I feel that it is also very important to involve traditional operators in this adventure.

Thirdly, we want to raise the level of economic revenue of the sector, which is very important until we can achieve a profitable, sustainable and self-sufficient industry that is resilient to any attack it may suffer from in the present and the future.

Fourthly, we are under an obligation to support creators. Forgive me for using this but I feel it is very important to tirelessly incorporate this gender perspective, time and time again, in the participation in property rights generated by their own works. I believe that this is an important, transforming step to take to recognise creativity in Spain.

In fifth place, aspire to give people an offer of audio-visual content produced in Spain that is much more abundant, varied and of higher quality.

I believe that the sector is already clearly going down this path.

And in sixth place, we want our industry to stand out in the audio-visual market as it well deserves, and what it deserves is to be is a space where others produce in our country and with our capabilities, and we want, above all, for our talent, which is tremendous, to achieve the maximum, or, better put, the maximum projection possible around the world.

I repeat, what we want are many of the things that have been said here by the representatives of the sector: more production, more windows, more income, more rights and more projection for our works and a better offer for our citizens as a whole.

Look, I will end now. The audio-visual industry is essential for any country. I believe that if this pandemic has made anything clear, this is one specific facet. And even more so for a country like ours, with a cultural heritage, mentioned before, that is tremendous and with a great wealth of languages, particularly with Spanish as the flagship, along with Catalan, Galician and Basque. The audio-visual industry is key, due to its weight in job creation and economic activity. You know this better than me, but also due to its weight in our identities. I also like to speak of identities in plural, not just one, but many identities, fortunately, and in our international projection.

The cultural industries that have suffered so much need to be those that take off the strongest at the start of the economic recovery, which is imminent. And the government will apply itself to this with all its energy. We have been doing this quietly in talks with many of you over recent months. And through this presentation we want to make this public. Each step we take in the vaccination process - the Vice-President of the Government for Economic Affairs always tells me that the best tool we have at this time in our economic policy for the recovery is vaccination. And in this regard, I want to reaffirm the commitment of the Government of Spain that there will be 20 million people vaccinated in Spain by June and 70% of the Spanish population vaccinated by the end of the summer, thanks to the contribution from science and thanks to Europe, because we have centralised the procurement of these vaccines, which has allowed us to speed up not just the research processes, but also the supply of these vaccines in our country.

And by the way, Mariano, it is not me who decides on this. It is the technical committee for public health that clearly adheres to scientific criteria, as you know.

But anyway, we are making progress on vaccination, which is a decisive step in the economic recovery which is now drawing nearer to ensure that this is the year of vaccination and hence the year of the great recovery.

And in this recovery, believe me when I say to you that we need the audio-visual industry to shine on the front line, in the same way as it accompanied us at the most difficult times of our lives, as we have been reminded of here today, because it was in March last year that our whole lives changed. All our people can confirm this; we were locked down to tackle the pandemic that we are still fighting.

The efforts made by science have made it possible to discover and manufacture vaccines in record time, which will help alleviate and overcome this serious health, economic and social crisis that is still ravaging us. And I also want to tell you that Spain will make an effort at solidarity, we are already doing that, but we will do this even more intensely when we pass this target of 70%, with many countries already looking at Europe and saying, where is your solidarity so that the vaccines can reach us and we can vaccinate ourselves? Such a global industry as yours, I am convinced, is also well aware of the tremendous challenge whereby we have to overcome the pandemic at a global level.

And the economic emergency has also had a destructive effect on everyone, particularly in certain sectors like yours.

The government takes on the obligation, its duty, to find, if you will allow me the simile, the vaccine needed to heal the damage suffered. And not only to heal the damage suffered, but also to transform and reconvert sectors that generate a great deal of entertainment, economic wealth and jobs.

A year ago, you, the professionals of the audio-visual industry showed us to what extent you were essential in all our lives. The time has come to acknowledge this effort and our duty, as public representatives, is to ensure that your talent is converted into an even more robust industry and that this industry generates cultural creations that are projected both within and beyond our borders to the utmost.

So if you will allow me, let the magic continue.

Thank you very much.

(Transcript edited by the State Secretariat for Communication)

Non official translation