COMPANY TOWN ANNEX

No Quotas on Hollywood: European Union cultural ministers voted against placing strict quotas on films and television programs produced in the United States and other non-European countries. The French are hearty advocates of rules that require at least half of all programming to be European in origin. In an informal meeting in Bordeaux, the cultural ministers of Greece and Belgium supported the French proposal, but the other representatives said quotas are not the best mechanism for preserving European culture. Last year, France angered the American film industry during GATT negotiations by winning an exclusion for movies allowing them to maintain trade barriers to protect the French film industry.