2h23 PST 1/20/2021
in
Georg Szalai
“British musicians, dancers, actors and their support staff have been shamefully disapproved by their government,” more than 100 creatives said in a letter.
Music stars, including Elton John, Sting, Bob Geldof and Ed Sheeran, said on Wednesday that the UK government had “shamefully failed” in creatives with its post-Brexit trade deal and urged it to come to terms with the European Union to guarantee the visa and tours without bureaucracy.
They stressed that the commercial pact, revealed at Christmas, brings “extra costs” and jobs that “would make many tours unfeasible, especially for young emerging musicians who are already struggling to keep their heads above water due to COVID’s ban on live music. Instead, they called for “paperless trips in Europe for British artists and their equipment”.
One of the main concerns is that, according to the trade pact, touring musicians and their teams need separate visas for each of the EU’s 27 member states.
More than 100 well-known musical personalities signed the open letter, organized by the Incorporated Society of Musicians and published in The times. “British musicians, dancers, actors and their support staff have been shamefully disapproved by their government,” the document said. “The deal with the EU has a gap where the promised freedom of movement for musicians should be.”
Representatives from the United Kingdom and the European Union played the blame game over why such an agreement was not reached in the trade agreement. UK Minister of State in the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sports, Caroline Dinenage, told a parliamentary committee that the EU had made a “very broad” offer that “would not be compatible” with the conservative Prime Minister’s promise Boris Johnson government minister to “take back control of our borders.”
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