Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-16-Speech-2-102"
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"en.20010116.7.2-102"2
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".
Protecting and promoting our heritage in each Member State is fundamentally important as, in so doing, we are safeguarding our identities and special characteristics whilst still respecting differences.
Our heritage, be it cultural, architectural, economic or natural, is the legacy of our past and in protecting it we are not fighting a rearguard action. On the contrary, it shows that we are preparing for our future. The author Ernest Renan wrote that the only true men of progress are those who take a deep-seated respect for the past as their starting point.
We must, therefore, take advantage of the wealth of our past, our heritage, our roots and our traditions, even the very oldest, in order to prepare for the future. This cultural diversity and wealth will allow us to gain a better understanding of ourselves. To achieve this, however, we must respect all the diversity of our various heritages, all our differences, and the only way to do this is to invoke the subsidiarity principle.
In line with this principle we can preserve, develop and transmit our heritage, culture and traditions. When these disappear or fade away (in the way of hunting, rural life and gastronomic tradition) we are breaking the chain of transmission by which we hand down our wealth and our way of life and this brings about cultural impoverishment. At the end of the day, we will create a mould into which everyone has to fit in order to live in an insipid but more malleable society that can be controlled by ‘rulers and governors’. That is unacceptable.
Therefore, to protect, preserve and promote our heritage, we must save our architecture, support our arts and craft industry, preserve and enhance the value of our countryside, but I would like to stress that we must not wrap it in cotton wool or exclude the cultural traditions and customs which are practised there. In so doing, we must also respect the right to be different and help to preserve all these values since rural life has its own rightful place in this predominantly urban society.
Therefore, to come back to the report, it is, of course, important to protect the heritage of both the European Union and third countries, but it is equally important and vital to protect the heritage of our own countries and regions. We are therefore pleased to note the proposals to take our heritage into account in the various training programmes set up to protect and restore our heritage. The same goes for funding and support of the arts and craft industry, a sector which creates many jobs, as long as it is not suffocated by unrealistic pernickety regulations, as has been possible for market traders.
We must however state our reservations regarding the European regulations which, on the pretext of environmental protection (a term applied too narrowly), will serve only to wipe out local traditions and customs that are a vital part of the local culture of our regions. Yet, this is the opposite of what this report sets out to achieve and so, although we support the report, we are abstaining from the vote for this reason."@en1
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