The Spanish Producers' Federation FAPAE is lobbying for an increase in the country's controversial screen quota system, calling for one day of European cinema for every two of third-country films exhibited in Spain. Current law requires one for every three.

The recently re-elected president of FAPAE Eduardo Campoy said the group would further lobby that 60% of those European films be Spanish. Other potential measures FAPAE may push for to "make honest competition viable" in Spain's exhibition market are a prohibition on film advertising on TV and restrictions on broadcasts of non-European films.

"More films are entering our market than we can consume," Campoy said of Spain's average ten releases a week. He pointed the finger at blockbuster titles from the US which he claimed "collapse the big cinemas" with their mega-releases and push even successful Spanish films off screens.

He cited the recent example of Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings, which he said between them occupied almost a third of Spain's screens for several weeks.

Spain's quota system came under heated debate last year when the national Film Institute, ICAA, proposed dissolving the quotas over a five-year period. Instead, the new Cinema Support and Promotion Law which came into effect in June reinstated the quotas for five years.