Saying European television can be a force for cooperation and democracy, Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset unveiled a historic co-production agreement at the Series Mania television festival on Thursday.

The treaty, the Convention on the Co-production of Audiovisual Works in the form of series, was adopted by the Council of Europe, the continents leading human rights organisation, last November. It is designed to support the independent co-production of series for television and streaming platformsby streamlining administrative procedures and making it easier for independent producers from different countries to work together and access state media funding in their respective countries. The political goal of the treaty is to encourage cultural cooperation across borders [fostering] a richermix of languages, perspectives, and storytelling traditionsin the serial works available to citizens in Europe and beyond.

In an impassioned speech at Series Mania, Berset said Europe has forgotten how to tell its own story and needs tools like the treaty to give it the financial and regulatory support to continue to make series that represent the best of European ideals.

Speaking after a Federation of Screenwriters in Europe report warning of attacks on freedom of speech from European far-right governments, Berset said the treaty was a strategic signal for resilience of European productions, a reminder we are stronger when policymakers, public service media and creators move together.

Berset, along with delegates from around a dozen other nations, will officially sign the co-pro treaty into force at Series Mania. The agreement will put in place a series of co-production rules similar to those that already exist for feature film co-productions in Europe. The legal framework will also clarify rules around revenue sharing, access to funding and data transparency.

European stories, argued Berset in his speech, are not just consumer products, but a representation of the cultures and values of the continent. If European viewers, as citizens, are reduced to consumers and dialog is reduced to data, he added, before you know it, Europe becomes a market of 700 million people rather than a continent that can tell its own story.

Berset ended with a demand that European creators remember that national identity is not nationalism and protection is not protectionism.

The world outside is not waiting for culture to catch up, it is already here in this room, on our screens, in the stories we tell, he said. And it is in the stories we fail to tell each other. It lies in our abiltiy to imagine the future together and that is why democracy really is the greatest story of all.