International Business : EU Redoubles Subsidies for Film Industry : Europe: One goal is a regional distribution system, considered key in fending off U.S. imports.

The European Union’s executive commission on Wednesday approved a plan to provide $500 million in new subsidies to Western Europe’s beleaguered film industry over the next five years.

The subsidies that begin in 1996 will double the funding of the EU’s initial five-year support package that runs through the end of this year.

Although the amount will be sharply increased, the number of programs receiving support will drop from 19 to just three.

“Double the budget, concentrate the action,” Marcelino Oreja, the EU commissioner responsible for cultural affairs, said in announcing the subsidies package.

Wednesday’s decision comes in the midst of a major internal debate in Europe about how to preserve its audiovisual sector in the face of increased imports, mainly from the United States. Oreja said more than 80% of films shown in European theaters are non-European and that 55% to 60% of television broadcast time goes to imported programs.

Many Europeans, who have tended to view their film industry more as an art form than a commercial industry, consider the American dominance a threat to their culture. “We just can’t treat audiovisual matters as ordinary goods,” Oreja said. “They represent the cultural wealth of Europe.”

But for Hollywood filmmakers, Europe represents their richest overseas market, one that has helped make film products America’s second-largest export after commercial aircraft.

More than half the funds in Wednesday’s package will be used to develop a regional distribution network for films produced in the EU’s 15 member countries.

European film producers have long argued that one key to the success of American film products is a powerful distribution system that stretches throughout Europe. The majority of European-owned distribution companies tend to concentrate within their own national or linguistic boundaries.

The rest of the EU subsidies will be devoted to training and the development of television programs and films with a European dimension.

In a related development, Oreja indicated that the commission made little headway Wednesday in redrafting a controversial EU regulation that calls for broadcasters operating in member countries to devote a majority of their non-news and sports programming “where practicable” to productions of European origin.

The commission is under pressure, mainly from France, to make the quotas airtight by removing the “where practicable” wording.

However, quotas are opposed by other countries as well as several EU commissioners.