EuroFIA’s first meeting of 2011 took place in Berlin on the 25th of June. Kindly hosted by our German affiliate Ver.di, the meeting brought EuroFIA members together to discuss and reflect on several issues of concern for performers and their unions.
Inspired by the vivid conversations that had marked the previous EuroFIA meeting, held in Amsterdam in October 2010, the discussion was partly structured around panel debates focusing on particular problems faced by European performers’ unions. The subjects were: “Freelances and Self-Employed Artists – the Role of Unions and the Advance of Emerging Intermediary Players” and “Piracy and Enforcement”.
Other topics of discussion were covered, notably the extension of the term of protection, tools to promote gender equality in artistic productions, WIPO, work carried out at national level, and recent EU developments – in the fields of artists’ mobility, intellectual property rights, European Social Dialogue, cultural diversity. Gathering in Berlin also gave EuroFIA members the opportunity to attend the final event of the groups’ latest project: a conference on Transition Schemes for Dancers.
An emergency motion was adopted in support of FNV-KIEM and the Dutch cultural sector, facing irreversibly damaging cuts.
