The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, defended this Thursday in the Plenary Session of Congress the need to move forward with a new Law on Cinema and Audiovisual Culture "at the height" of the "success" of Spanish audiovisual, and reproached the PP for trying to block its processing in the Chamber despite admitting that the current regulation is "outdated" and requires an update.
Urtasun intervened in the full debate of the project, to which the PP and Vox have registered separate rejection amendments, and criticized the popular party for accusing him of having copied the proposal of his predecessor, Miquel Iceta, instead of taking advantage of the process to introduce improvements.
"The PP itself acknowledges in its full amendment that the current law has become outdated, that technological changes and new consumption habits require regulatory updates and that the audiovisual sector constitutes a strategic sector for our country. Therefore, it is difficult to understand the conclusion reached by the Popular Group. The logical thing, as I told you in the last control session, would be to get to work to improve it. What is difficult to explain is that those who recognize the need for a new law are precisely proposing to prevent that law from even being processed in this Chamber," the minister stated during the debate.
In his speech, he remembered the director of the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), Ignasi Camós, who recently passed away, to whom he attributed a decisive role in the promotion of the law and of whom he assured that he would be "happy" to follow the parliamentary debate. Urtasun asked the PP "not to steal the debate".
The head of Culture also rejected Vox's amendment, accusing them of building their discourse on a "supposed culture of subsidies," and asserted that public aid for cinema is common practice in all European Union countries.
"I believe that this statement says much more about the person who makes it than about the reality of the Spanish audiovisual sector. Because when one hears talk of a supposed culture of subsidies, one might imagine a dependent, stagnant sector, or one incapable of competing on its own. But the reality we have before us is exactly the opposite," he stated.
In this context, he has lashed out at the Argentine president Javier Milei, whom he has accused of promoting cuts and the dismantling of cultural organizations, including the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA), and has expressed his "solidarity" with Argentine cinema.
"Great moment for Spanish cinema" and the need for a new law
The minister has championed cinema as "an artistic manifestation, a cultural industry, and a tool for knowledge" that helps societies "tell themselves who they are, where they come from, and where they want to go." He has stressed that the audiovisual sector has become a strategic sector that has little to do with that of 2007, when the still-current law was approved, due to the rise of digital platforms and changes in consumption habits.
Urtasun has highlighted the "great moment" that Spanish cinema is going through, citing filmmakers such as Carla Simón, Oliver Laxe, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, or Alberto Rodríguez, and actors such as Javier Bardem or Victoria Luengo. He has also highlighted the "record" presence of the sector at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as the audience and box office figures in 2025 and Spain's European leadership in film production.
In this scenario, he has insisted that the sector "needs legislation commensurate with this success" that accompanies its expansion and international projection, and has assured that the Government will maintain dialogue with the industry and parliamentary groups during the legislative process.
In economic terms, Urtasun has recalled that in 2025 more than 65 million people attended cinemas in Spain, with a box office revenue of over 453 million euros and a market share of close to 19 percent for national cinema, which added more than 12 million viewers.
At the close of his speech, he asked PP and Vox what plans they would have for the ICAA if they were to govern and stressed that the bill aims to ensure a "stronger, more diverse, egalitarian, and competitive" audiovisual sector in the coming years.
Criticism from PP and Vox: delays, "copies," and "ghost films"
From the PP, the deputy Sol Cruz Guzmán, who addressed Urtasun as "failed minister," questioned the Ministry's management in recent years and accused Pedro Sánchez's government of not properly executing European funds or advancing key reforms for the cultural sector, such as the Artist's Statute or the Copyright Law.
In his speech, he reproached the minister for taking three years to promote the Cinema Law and suggested that the project arrives at Congress in the midst of "scandals" and an "end of a cycle." Even so, he offered collaboration to the groups and the sector itself to negotiate a text "from scratch" that would result in an "ambitious" law for Spanish cinema, which he defined as an element of cultural cohesion for the country.
On behalf of Vox, deputy José Ramírez del Río described the Government's proposal as "practically identical" to the one promoted by former minister Miquel Iceta. "Iceta already presented this law three years ago. Therefore, I find it striking the ardor that (Urtasun) has shown in defending a law that is not his," he pointed out.
Vox denounces "ghost films" and calls for tax incentives
In the same vein, he considered that re-registering the text constitutes "sabotage to the sector." "In 2025, 727 Spanish films were released, of which 106 did not manage to gross anything. A large part of those 106, the so-called ghost films, did not even gross 100 euros at the box office. Only 28 surpassed 100,000 euros at the box office, while the socialist government spent 250 million euros on subsidies," he criticized.
The Vox deputy advocated for strengthening tax incentives, reducing bureaucracy, and avoiding the creation of new public bodies. Furthermore, he accused the Executive of using cinema as a political tool and ironically remarked that some minority productions are less successful than the "PSOE as a jewelry appraiser."