Sanchez aspires to turn Spain into the “Hollywood of Europe”

Javier Romualdo and Jose Miguel Blanco

LOS ANGELES (USA), July 22 (EFE) – Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, explained this Thursday at NBC Universal studios, accepting a handful of executives from companies like Netflix and HBO, his plans to transform Spain into “Hollywood of Europe”.

Sanchez in Los Angeles (USA) outlined the pillars of the plan for which 1,603 million euros will be allocated to strengthen the Spanish audiovisual sector, which includes tax benefits for products deciding to reside in Spain and the issuance of a special visa to expedite the arrival of professionals.

“Spain has all the necessary administrative and financial incentives, as well as every possible landscape, to receive new projects and create new novels. We aspire to become, if we are allowed to compare, the Hollywood of Europe,” he said.

Sanchez’s words came after a meeting with the heads of Netflix, HBO, WarnerMedia, Disney and Activision as part of the second phase of his US business tour, which will end on Friday with a visit to several tech companies based in San Francisco. Area.

“Information and entertainment platforms have become the window through which millions of people look at a new reality. They have revolutionized the field of entertainment,” he said.

The president exemplified the international success of national productions, such as “La Casa de Papel” and “Elite”, as well as foreign novels such as “Game Of Thrones”, whose portrayal boosted tourism in parts of the Basque Country. He will return to Spain in the fall to shoot his prequel, House of the Dragon.

Take advantage of Brexit

But in addition to that, Sanchez wants to take advantage of the Brexit situation to bypass the UK in the audiovisual profession and thus, celebrate that ViacomCBS (owner of Paramount) has moved its production center from London to Madrid.

He noted that “several cross-border TV providers established in the UK prior to Brexit have now moved their operations to Spain, including our today’s hosts, NBCUniversal, Sony and Disney, to name a few.”

A series of movements made Spain “the second country in the European Union after Germany with the most hours of fiction production”.

The audiovisual plan is part of the recovery, transformation and resilience plan for the Spanish economy and will also benefit from improvements in the technological infrastructure that the government is preparing.

Another focus of the work includes providing assistance and support to potential investors, both foreign and Spanish companies interested in internationalization.

The goal is to achieve a 30% increase in audiovisual production made in Spain by 2025.

Technology and language promotion الترويج

Sanchez began his Los Angeles schedule with a visit to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

The goal was to promote Spanish technology in the field of space, which the Spanish government intends to pay special attention to in specific projects within the above-mentioned recovery plan.

Accompanied by the mayor of Los Angeles, the CEO toured the laboratory’s control center, which is responsible for the latest missions to Mars.

Many of the components for the robotics used in these missions were manufactured in Spain and Sanchez also spoke with twenty Spanish engineers who work at the center.

The president then used his residency in Los Angeles to preside over a work to promote the Spanish language and culture, after the government recently approved the opening of the Cervantes Institute Center in California.

At the event at UCLA, he asserted that Spanish is perhaps “the most vibrant language in the world”.

In his opinion, it is the language of “progress, modernity, future and understanding” and is the “best commercial, freedom and cultural ambassador” of Spain.

After closing his schedule in Los Angeles at Universal Studios, Sanchez flew to San Francisco, where he will end on Friday, with a visit to the Apple campus and a series of meetings with executives from various tech companies, his US tour. It started on Tuesday in New York. EFE

romu-BB /

(photo) (audio) (video)

© EFE 2021. Redistribution and redistribution of all or part of the contents of the Efe Services, without the prior and express consent of EFE SA, is expressly prohibited.