Mercado de objetos de arte en la unión europea

EUROPEAN BUSINESS LAW
JOSÉ EDUARDO SANTOS CONTRERAS
ASSOCIATE STUDENT

“ART OBJECTS MARKET IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: REGULATIONS AND CONCERNS”

JUNE 20TH 2012
TABLE OF CONTENT

1. ART OBJECTS MOVEMENT CONTROL _______________________2

2. EUROPEAN COMMISSION, THE ART MARKET AND VAT ______3

3. LOOTED PROPERTY CONCERNS____________________________4
4.1. UNESCO DeclarationsOn Objects Displaced in Connection With The Second World War__________________________________7

4. CONLUSION ______________________________________________8

5. REFERENCES _____________________________________________9

1. ART OBJECTS MOVEMENT CONTROL

The main instrument for controlling the pass of different cultural goods from country to country is by their competent authority.For example, in Russia export licensing is administrated by The Regulatory Service for Mass Media, Communications, and Protection of Cultural Heritage. In addition, there are other agencies involved in controlling the movement of works of arts across countries and they are custom authorities and the mere Police.

The export license is kind of a passport for cultural goods, which ensures that allthe goods have passed a test made by specialists and are being approved by them to move to another country. The works of art must be inspected, reviewed in a documentation process, and must have their provenance and value all clear before any export license is being made.

There are three main reasons to have control on any international movement concerning works of art:

-There must be somekind of control on cultural goods that might mean something valuable to some country’s history.

-There are underground movements related to objects such as antiques that might mean a good bargain for criminals. This is were the police might focus on too.

-Finally, in some countries having a proper tax collection such as VAT (being explained later) over art products is really important.

Notall the countries follow the same regulations for the movement of cultural goods so here’s a list of possible differences between each other:

-The issue of the export license, for example, each time for scheduling an issue may vary notably.

-Sometimes the object might need to be presented to be inspected

-In other occasion, there might be the need for valuation of an expert so he/shemust be paid for that.

-There might be an inventory of goods that can’t be exported

-Whether there exist any valuation or refusal of an export

All this export controls have to cover either nationally significant or valuable older cultural goods define in the regulation 3911/92 of the Council which lists all the definitions of age and value limits determining if they are covered or not.Even though the European Union was established to have a certain control and support between several countries in Europe, there are different standards for each country to decide whether or not there’s a national priority for art objects.

There’s no guarantee that the export controls were made to not let cultural objects to move from country to country, they were just meant to have checkoutsand restrict the movement of these cultural objects. Moreover, the conditions for exporting an artwork depend always on the country you want to export from. So, for example if I live in Ireland and I want to but British artwork, the UK export regulations will cover the movement of the cultural good.

2. EUROPEAN COMMISSION, THE ART MARKET AND VAT

The European commission adopted since January1995 the application of the special VAT for works of art introduced in that month.

According to VAT, all works of art are treated just as any other goods. Any person living in the EU has to pay VAT on works of art in any place established in the European Union. When there is a purchase in a country outside of the EU, the VAT will be set not only on the price of the art object but on the...