Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-27-Speech-3-214"
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"en.19991027.8.3-214"2
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".
Mr President, the CULTURE 2000 programme, as a single instrument, will be replacing the ARIANE, KALEIDOSCOPE and RAPHAEL programmes which gave outstanding service to the cause of European culture and whose success has been universally acknowledged.
We all know that our cultural coordinates are related to our sense of identity as Europeans. We also know that fundamental action linked to cultural life in its multiple forms is an indispensable factor for the strengthening of an awareness of European identity. Until this dimension is fully achieved, political union itself will have feet of clay. Culture on its own can be one of its strongest foundations. In order to achieve this, there will have to be greater participation on the part of the citizens, and greater access to culture. I shall close my speech with the hope that this Parliament’s actions will make an important contribution to achieving this.
Thanks to the activities that were developed within the respective frameworks, access to a vast range of cultural products and values has been provided for many European citizens who would not otherwise have had this opportunity. As a single financing and programming instrument for cooperation, CULTURE 2000 declares a range of objectives which aim to provide a response, more of a response and a better one, to such needs, and this, then, is able to represent a decisive step in the direction of a European cultural policy that is worthy of this name. By this I mean an instrument which will permit repeated, interactive and fruitful contact between the cultures of the various Member countries in such a way that the variety of areas looked at and the multidisciplinary nature of the events become an ever more vitalising element in the very soil of European identity without threatening pluralism and the essential diversity of these cultures.
Although all the participants in the various phases of the process bore these concerns in mind, it became clear that the attitudes of the Council and the Commission on the one hand and of this Parliament on the other were not completely attuned with one another. But although we have come a long way, we should nevertheless mention some of the main areas of disagreement.
These are, of course, the budgetary question, the question of a supposedly excessive fragmentation or disintegration of the Union’s actions, which is considered likely to reduce its visibility and, as a result, the question of an option in the sense of there being privileged lines which would support initiatives of a greater scale and of a more spectacular kind. The participation of agents and operators had been foreseen for this, which would involve a greater number of countries as a minimum which, as we see it, would carry a serious risk of hypertrophy in some networks of cultural operators. This would give them an excessive concentration of means and powers and, as a result, threaten the normal functioning and even the very existence of many others.
Consistent with the Mouskouri report which this Parliament was right to adopt, the recommendation to which I am honoured to put my name, maintained its aim of seeing the budgetary appropriation strengthened, from the EUR 167 million initially provided, and raised it to 250 million. There is no doubt that both the Council and the Commission are sensitive to the great needs that are being experienced in all the sectors covered by the programme, nor that there is much good will in the sense of trying to find satisfactory solutions.
Moving now to other points of disagreement, I will say that experience shows that the greater the number of States participating, the greater the risk of each initial project losing its own character. Now, in principle, each initial project corresponds to needs experienced specifically by a given group of citizens. On the other hand, it seems obvious that there are great imbalances as a result of extremely varied conditions of time, method and place, in terms of the opportunity for access to the enjoyment of cultural values that the citizens of various European countries possess.
This aspect tends to become even more complex with the perspective of enlargement which has, to a large extent, been prepared and anticipated at exactly the level of cultural contacts. This is why the possibility was foreseen of supporting medium- and even small-scale actions so that the greatest possible number of European citizens benefit, who will, as a result, be able to become more directly involved. Visibility will not count for much unless it relates intimately to life and to what culture has to offer.
In this respect, more concessions were made, and a minimum number of three was accepted for States involved in the joint organisation of specific projects and of five for States involved in the large-scale cultural cooperation agreements. Attempts were also made to find a way towards making the framework mechanisms more flexible. There was also the intention to stimulate the emergence of new synergies and of new thrusts for creativity without wanting to favour a sector-based approach to action.
It is becoming a matter of urgency that we move ahead. There are countless cultural operators and agents who will be deprived of any kind of means for the action that they are developing, which will be of inestimable value if this dossier is not concluded before the end of the year so that we can allow the programme to come into force at the beginning of next year. The figures calculated for conciliation will make this possible, as we know, moreover, that this conciliation will be conducted in parallel with the conciliation relating to the YOUTH programme, although it will be completely autonomous in relation to this programme."@en1
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