Henna Virkkunen, EVP of the European Fee answerable for tech sovereignty, safety and democracy, made the trek to the Cannes Film Festival on Friday for the primary time, simply as Europe’s movie group is up in arms over plans for main modifications to the EU’s Inventive Europe funding program.
On the eve of the fest’s opening, hundreds of European movie personalities, together with Pawel Pawlikowski, Lukas Dhont and Rodrigo Sorogoyen, fired off an open letter claiming that the present plan to mix the EU’s tradition and media strands beneath the so-called AgoraEU initiative will throw a monkey wrench into the workings of the Inventive Europe’s MEDIA Program. It has been an important EU movie and TV business driver for the previous 35 years, having backed latest Oscar winners corresponding to “Sentimental Value,” “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” “Flow,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Favourite.”
Earlier than assembly with the press in Cannes, Virkkunen took questions from Selection on a variety of subjects. They span from the AgoraEU initiative, which she mentioned “will build on the success of Creative Europe,” to the EU’s Synthetic Intelligence Act and the EU Fee’s regulatory approval of the Paramount-WBD Merger, the result of which “remains to be seen and could have an impact on the timeline or substance of the acquisition,” Virkkunen famous.
The European movie group is up in arms over combining funding for tradition and media beneath the AgoraEU initiative. Do you share their considerations?
I hear these considerations. However, I believe they relaxation on misreading what AgoraEU is about. It has been over one decade now that the funding going to tradition and audiovisual has coexisted beneath Inventive Europe. The mix labored as a result of the logic was coherent: European creativity deserves European assist.
AgoraEU takes one additional step. It integrates the present CERV programme (Residents, Equality, Rights and Values) and, crucially for this dialog, it creates for the primary time a devoted part throughout the MEDIA+ strand devoted to information media.
That’s what has sparked the talk throughout the audiovisual sector that has fought exhausting for its personal id, its personal funds. The worry is that these good points will probably be diluted. I wish to be clear — unbiased manufacturing, distribution, circulation, expertise improvement — all of this continues, we’ll construct on the success of Inventive Europe and reinforce our efforts sooner or later with a view to assure cultural and linguistic variety.
However I wish to make a broader argument, as a result of I believe the “merger logic” critique misses one thing essential. A filmmaker and an investigative journalist work in solely other ways. The worth chains, enterprise fashions and audiences of the audiovisual sector and information media sector are distinct. Nonetheless, in 2026, they face the identical challenges: the dominance of worldwide platforms, algorithmic distribution, the erosion of promoting and an AI revolution. Greater than that, they share the identical underlying goal. Movies, documentaries, collection, journalism: all of those form how residents perceive the world round them, how they type opinions, how they interact with democratic life.
Defending a various, unbiased European media area a part of our goal however it’s also a democratic crucial. And that is the rationale why we proposed the AgoraEU programme: to deal with the broader query of what sort of European public sphere we wish to construct for the longer term.
Concerning the AVMS directive, final time we spoke (in Venice) you mentioned that this yr the EU would “evaluate” progress being made by the directive that’s in varied levels of implementation throughout Europe. Has this occurred? In that case, what are the findings of this analysis?
Since we final spoke in Venice, the analysis technique of the AVMSD has continued. Following the launch of the analysis in July 2025, the Fee has carried out intensive consultations, together with a stakeholder workshop, a name for proof, and a public session that closed on 1 Could. We at the moment are assessing the contributions acquired to organize the influence evaluation and inform the subsequent steps forward of the attainable evaluate foreseen within the Fee Work Programme for Q3 2026. As the method remains to be ongoing, there aren’t any ultimate findings at this stage.
The goal of the analysis is to find out whether or not the present guidelines stay match for goal in gentle of market and technological developments, altering consumption habits, and the emergence of recent gamers corresponding to influencers. Points into account embrace the visibility and prominence of European works, equity within the promoting market, and the effectiveness of guidelines defending minors from dangerous content material on video-sharing platforms.
Speak to me concerning the EU’s Synthetic Intelligence Act. What are the important thing factors that apply to the movie and TV sector?
The EU AI Act is the world’s first complete authorized framework for AI. Its purpose is to make sure that AI developed and utilized in Europe is reliable, human-centric and respectful of elementary rights, whereas additionally supporting innovation and competitiveness.
Probably the most related factors for the movie and TV ecosystem are twofold.
First, transparency. Suppliers of generative AI methods are obliged to mark AI-generated outputs — together with audio, picture, video and textual content — in a machine-readable format and guarantee they’re detectable as artificially generated or manipulated. Additionally, when AI methods are used to generate or manipulate content material — for instance artificial audio, video, or deepfakes — deployers of generative AI methods (corresponding to skilled content material creators) that generate deepfakes want to obviously disclose that the content material has been artificially generated or altered.
Second, the AI Act helps compliance with EU copyright legislation by requiring suppliers of general-purpose AI fashions positioned on the European market to place in place a coverage to adjust to EU copyright legislation, together with respecting the selection of rightsholders to not permit the usage of their content material for the coaching of AI fashions. As well as, the AI Act requires suppliers to publish a sufficiently detailed abstract of the information used for coaching.
The AI Workplace is supporting the implementation of the AI Act by means of steerage, templates and Codes of Follow. Of specific relevance is the copyright chapter of the Code of Follow on Basic-Objective AI Fashions, developed with stakeholders and permitted by the Fee, which incorporates commitments to respect opt-out mechanisms and cut back the danger of copyright-infringing outputs.The AI Workplace can be facilitating the event of a Code of Follow on the marking and labelling of AI-generated content material beneath the AI Act’s transparency guidelines.
I’d additionally like to stress that Europe’s strategy to AI will not be solely regulatory. Europe has chosen a framework constructed on three mutually reinforcing pillars. Alongside the AI Act, the EU is investing in AI infrastructure by means of the AI Continent Motion Plan and selling AI adoption by means of the Apply AI Technique, together with in media sectors. This technique helps the event and uptake of AI purposes e.g. for digital manufacturing, immersive storytelling and multilingual media companies.
Is the specter of Trump tariffs on foreign-produced movies proven within the U.S. nonetheless looming, assuming that it was ever to be taken severely?
At this stage, there may be nonetheless vital uncertainty surrounding the introduced tax by President Trump on movies produced outdoors the US, as no additional particulars have been offered relating to its scope or implementation. The Fee will assess the implications as soon as/if extra concrete info turns into accessible.
Might the EU turn into an obstacle to the Paramount Warner Bros merger?
It’s common for concentrations involving corporations lively within the EU to require regulatory approvals earlier than the respective transactions might be applied. The potential merger between Paramount and Warner Bros may need to be reviewed beneath a number of EU regulatory frameworks.
Specifically, the European Media Freedom Act introduces safeguards to make sure that media concentrations are additionally assessed when it comes to their influence on media pluralism and editorial independence, alongside present EU competitors guidelines, together with the EU Merger Regulation and the Overseas Subsidies Regulation, which proceed to use in parallel. The result beneath any of those procedures, to the extent they apply to this case, stays to be seen and will have an effect on the timeline or substance of the acquisition.
