Establishment and objectives of the Programme
Article 1
1
A programme, (hereinafter referred to as
‘
the Programme
’
), is hereby established to encourage the development, distribution and promotion of European audiovisual works within and outside the Community, to run from
1 January 2001
to
31 December 2005
, for the purpose of strengthening the European audiovisual industry.
2
The objectives of the Programme shall be as follows:
a
an improvement in the competitiveness of the European audiovisual sector — including small and medium-sized enterprises — on the European and international markets, by supporting the development, distribution and promotion of European audiovisual works, taking account of the development of new technologies;
b
strengthening the sectors which help improve the transnational movement of European works;
c
respect for and promotion of linguistic and cultural diversity in Europe;
d
enhancing the European audiovisual heritage, in particular by digitisation and networking;
e
development of the audiovisual sector in countries or regions with a low audiovisual production capacity and/or a restricted linguistic or geographical area and strengthening networking and transnational cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises;
f
the dissemination of new types of audiovisual content using new technologies.
Those objectives shall be realised in accordance with the detailed arrangements set out in the Annex.
Substituted by Corrigendum to Council Decision 2000/821/EC of 20 December 2000 on the implementation of a programme to encourage the development, distribution and promotion of European audiovisual works (MEDIA Plus — Development, Distribution and Promotion) (2001-2005) (Official Journal of the European Communities L 336 of 30 December 2000).