UTTAR PRADESH-Evading the Land Issue

countries." France subsidises the production of 150 French films, by raising $ 350 'million annually through levies on TV sets and rentals for vidco-cassettes. Clearly, it was not going to give in to America's film industry. It justified the quota, the taxes, and the rentals on the ground that these were all essential for the defence of France against the arrogance of the American' industries trying to' 'impose [their] domination by any means." And "after all, the livelihood of 70,000 people in the French Film Industry depends on this." It was December 13; hardly 48 hours were left to come to an agreement, but the French foreign minister was still saying: "The conditions for a definitive agreement have not yet been secured. America has been showing intransigence on the audio-visual question, particularly on the cinema issue. Then there are questions yet to be solved on shipping, financial services, any aircraft subsidies." The US was furious; its second largest export industry, after aircraft, is the movie industry; sales in Europeralone in 1992 were worth nearly $ 3.7 billion. Clinton's political base is California, the home of the film industry, and in October 1993 he had declared in Hollywood: "audio-visual products [are] linked to the vital job issue, it [is] a fairness issue as well for America. " However, the issue being politically explosive, and the time running out, America came forward, ready to compromise. It asked Europe to lift the quota system on American films shown at prime-time and allow broadcasting stations to put their programmes on air without a time-bar. It wanted a portion of the tax collected by France on American films to be given to the American companies and artists, as it was "well known" that Europeans often copied their work and escaped paying royalties. It was even prepared to reinvest the money in Europe. But the European Community rejected the offer outright. Even the rather half-hearted mediation efforts of Chancellor Kohl