European Forum of Cultural Industries, in March, in Barcelona

Barcelona will host the European Cultural Industries Forum on March 29 and 30, on the eve of the Informal Meeting of Ministers of Culture of the European Union. During this meeting the 'Green Paper on Cultural and Creative Industries of the European Commission' will be presented.

Organized by the Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the Official Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Navigation of Barcelona, ​​the county capital will host the meeting of the European Forum of Cultural Industries on March 29 and 30. This meeting will serve as a prologue to the Informal meeting of Ministers of Culture of the European Union that will also be held in the Catalan capital, on March 31.

During this congress the Green Paper on Cultural and Creative Industries of the European Commission, prepared by different experts and technicians from each of the economic-cultural subjects of the sector.

After the inaugural conference of the Forum, the meetings will be organized around four plenary sessions and two parallel sessions, which will address issues such as the financing of cultural industries (financial intervention mechanisms, sustainability of SMEs...), professionals in cultural industries (new skills derived from the digital mutation, mobility of talents...), the internationalization of cultural products (local production in global markets, internationalization and cooperation strategies...), intellectual property and rights management, and territorial development (culture and territorial development, European local and regional development programs).

The forum will have the participation of institutional representatives of the EU and the different Member States; high-level experts in each of the subjects; technicians from the working groups of the European Commission; and representatives of the cultural, economic and training industry sectors... In total, more than 500 professionals and seventy speakers are expected to attend the meeting.

The Minister of Culture, Ángeles González-Sinde, has highlighted that Barcelona will witness debates in which the possibility of culture becoming "a driving force of the economy and a new way of understanding the economy" will be discussed. For his part, the coordinator of the Forum, Lluís Bonet, pointed out that the meeting aims to “give continuity” to the International Congress of Economy and Culture that King Juan Carlos inaugurated in the Catalan capital in May 2009.