Culture Counts Response to the Consultation Review of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement
8. How trade in goods and services between the EU and UK is currently working and if there are areas where it can be improved.
Whilst the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, aims to eliminate tariffs and quotas on goods traded between the UK and the EU, the cultural and creative industries sector have faced new challenges and increased administrative burdens, post-Brexit. Exporting cultural goods and services, such as film, music, theatre, craft and art works and digital content, has required navigating new customs procedures and checks, additional regulatory requirements and frameworks, the need for visas in certain circumstances, and intellectual property rules. These have impacted in a number of ways:
New customs procedures and border checks: Organisations involved in importing and exporting cultural goods and services have needed to comply with new customs documentation and procedures. Changes in customs procedures and increased border checks can lead to logistical challenges including delays in the transportation of goods, and additional time and paperwork is often required for customs clearance. These challenges are also capacity and resource intensive with increased admin costs to ensure they are compliant with the new rules. It is now more expensive to bring international work to Scotland and export it to Europe.
We urge the Scottish Government to continue to communicate with the UK Government to work towards simplifying the rules between the EU and UK, governing the movement of goods, services and people and provide the necessary level of support to the culture sector.
Seek to minimise the complexity of rules governing carnets, cabotage and digitally delivered services. Review of the carnet and cabotage rules such as exemptions, waivers or setting minimum values etc.
Customs Tariffs: can vary depending on the nature of the goods, affecting the flow of goods and impacting on activity and ambition. Taking merchandise into the EU is now reported to be more expensive.
Compliance with EU regulations for cultural products and services being imported into the UK includes adherence to standards related to intellectual property, copyright, and other regulatory requirements, specific to the cultural and creative industries.
VAT and Taxation: changes and adjustment in VAT rates and other taxation aspects can impact the cost of importing and exporting cultural goods.
Lack of support: Craft Scotland notes that makers are reporting that there is a lot of uncertainty and risk around VAT and customs tariffs which particularly affect exporting for sole traders. There is also a lack of support for freelancers. Scottish Contemporary Art Network (SCAN), reports that in the last decade small commercial galleries who support some of Scotland's most significant artists have been unable to access business support to travel to art fairs. This has led to significant inhibition of market development for artistic export and placed limits on the kind of artists and galleries who can sustain careers or businesses. The absence of support is in direct contrast to Scottish Government support for small food and drink producers and a dedicated scheme for those aspects of the creative sector who are economic and industry focused could bring considerable growth.
An Office for Cultural Exchange: in direct response to Brexit and in support of creative people across the nation, Culture Counts and its partners have been looking at the longstanding policy ask of the Scottish Government to establish an ‘Office for Cultural Exchange’ safeguarding international exhibiting, touring, festivals, and residencies. This could also encompass the music sector’s call for a Scottish music export office. With the increasing difficulties of securing mobility for temporary creative workers between the EU and UK post-Brexit, establishing an Office for Cultural Exchange could advise and support the cultural sector on importing and exporting, to overcome the barriers to international working and connect with individuals, organisations and institutions across Europe and target countries, making Scotland an attractive partner for European Partnership Projects and for wider global collaborations.
An Office for Cultural Exchange and better utilisation of the International Hubs could also support the cultural sector to ensure that we are able to host, and share ideas with the most talented, innovative, artists, thinkers, and activists from across the globe. At the moment, information sharing does not tend to go beyond agencies.
Market Access: Challenges and barriers have led to perceptions within Europe and amongst promoters, for example, that the UK post Brexit is very challenging and not worth the trouble. Festivals Edinburgh have cited reduces levels of EU participation in the festivals since the introduction of rules around movement of EU citizens. Important that our creative people can earn an income beyond our borders as for some it is difficult to sustain an income without this.
Restrictions on freedom of movement: Leaving the EU has made it more difficult for Scottish artists, performers, and cultural professionals to travel and work in the EU, due to visa requirements and other bureaucratic hurdles as well as for international artists to work in the UK. In addition, securing work permits and visas across multiple countries can be extremely challenging, time consuming and complex and limits opportunities for multi-country touring throughout the EU.
Exploration of schemes that take cultural business visitors out of the visa and work permit processes. Alternatively look at developing a cultural work visa.
More support is needed to support touring across the EU. This could be in the form of a Touring agreement with the UK and EU. There is also a need for a Touring fund which is more accessible across the sector.
Non-Tariff Barriers: including restrictive customs procedures and regulatory checks, has led to increased administrative burdens for organisations. Navigating the additional complexities increases costs and are particularly challenging for individuals who have to do this alone.
Streamlining and simplifying these processes could improve efficiency.
Travel restrictions: the 90 days out of 180 rule restricts the duration of touring as well as personal travel.
Skills Development: the loss of the ERASMUS programme has had a negative impact for young people being able to participate in international experience and knowledge opportunities. This is likely to have wider reaching impacts seeing a reduction in international benefits, investment, leadership and reputation, which has been well established in Scotland and is now at risk due to not being part of the Erasmus or Creative Europe programmes. Restricting touring opportunities has led to some skills shortages particularly around technical roles who cannot gain EU wide experience.
We would urge the Scottish Government to make the case to UK Government for the UK to rejoin the Creative Europe and Erasmus+ programmes. If this cannot be delivered a budget from Scottish Government to enable participation in EU networks and projects could make Scotland the preferred UK partner for invitation into EU programmes with ‘third country’ status. Any steps within the proposed International Culture Strategy which can help address those decisions would help reduce the loss to Scotland’s artists, organisations, young people and their leaders.
Additional areas for improvement:
Given the dynamic nature of international relations, periodic reviews of the trade agreement are welcomed to address areas for improvement.
A strategic approach: The challenges presented by leaving the EU are significant and require careful planning and strategic thinking in order to mitigate their impact on international cultural activity in Scotland.
The International Cultural Strategy could help to mitigate the challenges of leaving the EU on cultural activity by providing a clear and coordinated approach to funding, market access, collaborations and partnerships, travel and mobility, and talent development. This could help to ensure that Scotland's cultural sector remains vibrant, innovative, and globally connected.
The lack of a fully developed Creative Industries Strategy in Scotland and a lack of clarity about who leads support and investment in the international aspects of Creative Business between UK government, Scottish Government, as well as Creative Scotland, the enterprise network and other agencies, is a significant hindrance to effective working and support for those practitioners and organisations who have an export focus.