Scen & Film på ETUC i Berlin

ETUC, det samlade europafacket, fyller i år 50 år och har hållit kongress i Berlin under parollen ”Together for a Fair Deal for Workers”. Scen & Film var på plats som en del av TCO:s delegation. Inbjudna talare var bland andra förbundskansler Olav Scholz och EU parlamentets ordförande Ursula von der Leyen.

På kongressen väljs den nya ledningen för de kommande fyra åren och man beslutar om den gemensamma handlingsplanen. Handlingsplanen består av fyra kapitel med en rad åtgärdsförslag och varje delegation får uttala sig en gång under varje kapitel. Scen & Films förbundsordförande Simon Norrthon talade under rubriken Together for Our European Future”, återgivet nedan:

Dear collegues,

I am an actor, and President of the Swedish Union for Performing Arts and Film.

We are proud members of TCO and the European trade union community.

As artists, we like to think that we contribute to the development of our societies, but we rarely have access to rooms like this. I want to take this opportunity to address the prerequisite for my profession as an artist.

The freedom of speech and artistic freedom are the core of an open society. These are the standards by which we measure the state of our democracies. To fight for and to defend these freedoms is crucial for the European trade unions, it’s about standing up for inclusion, and our equal right to express ourselves and our right to participate in cultural life, as well as our right to organize and fight for our rights.

We see an increasing number of populistic and anti-democratic movements all around Europe, attacking these principles, quite aggressively. Journalists and artists are subjects to hatred and threats, especially when we stand up for immigrants, ethnic diversity, gender equality or LGBTQia+ rights.

Dear Friends, our cultures are diverse, eclectic and evolving, they feed on innovation, interactions and mobility. Any attempt to try to define or to set boundaries for culture leads to foolishness and stagnation. But even more, these attempts threaten the very foundations our societies are built on.

Dear Congress, cultural policy must never be instrumentalized and serve political ideologies. On the contrary, cultural policy shall create conditions for us as citizens to make use of our freedom of speech. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that politicians operate ”at arm’s length distance” when making political decisions and allocating resources to culture.

To protect cultural diversity, there are policy areas on which the member states rather than EU-institutions should have the final say. I mean in particular paragraph 4.4.7 which suggests that social issues should be taken with a qualified majority.

Dear Friends, how we succeed to defend artistic freedom and freedom of speech is decisive for how we develop and strengthen democracy. In Sweden, in Europe and in the world. Democracy is not a noun; it is a verb. It’s not something we have, it’s something we do.

We support Chapter four.

Thank you. In solidarity.