Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-13-Speech-2-350"
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"en.20040113.16.2-350"2
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"Madam President, Mrs Prets, honourable Members, this is not the first report that the European Parliament has adopted on the subject of cultural diversity. It forms part of a long chain of ideas which supplement, repeat and strengthen each other. That is precisely why reports such as this one are so important, because each time they recall us to order and show us that Parliament is present, that it is keeping its eye on things and that it is not going to fall asleep on the job. It is ensuring that cultural diversity is a fundamental part of the European Union’s internal and external policies.
You will be aware that we are only at a preliminary stage in these negotiations, but I also have to tell you that we have sent a very strong signal to our partners by the publication, for the first time by the Commission, and therefore by the entire European executive, of a communication to the Council and Parliament on the European Union’s relations with UNESCO. This was a very strong point of departure for our partners to enable them to support us in our efforts in this direction. We still have a certain amount of time before we need to take action. UNESCO will make time available, and I would ask you to use this time in order to reflect, in depth, about the various aspects which are likely to be developed in this future Convention on which we shall need to consult our interested partners, professionals in the cultural sector and the cultural industries.
We must work together in order to define the detailed rules for cooperation with successive presidents of the Union, who will be conducting the UNESCO negotiations, so that Europe can prove that it is united on this occasion. This is important, because the rest of the world, the other continents, expect us to speak with a single voice, so that the Europe of cultural diversity, the example that others must follow, does not become scattered and lost in cacophony.
It is towards that end, ladies and gentlemen, that we should be working, and I should like to conclude, Madam President, by assuring you how pleased I am to have been able to benefit constantly from the unfailing support of the European Parliament. That has helped me enormously, and the successes which have been obtained are also your successes. Thank you very much; you have shown yourselves to be worthy of the cultural diversity of Europeans.
I should like to offer my sincere thanks to Mrs Prets for this report, which is in line with what the European Parliament, the mouthpiece of European citizens, has always wanted. You are right, Mrs Prets: cultural diversity is a fight, a fight in our everyday lives, and we are not fighting it alone: we need allies. On this point I welcome the continuous and long-standing support of the European Parliament, support which warms my heart and which never weakens, and support which helps the Commission to make progress in its actions aimed at implementing the Treaty in the area of cultural diversity.
In this respect, Madam President, the Prets report invites us to think about what is at stake. There are many things at stake, and Mrs Prets has listed them. First of all there are national policies, with increasingly difficult budgets admittedly, but it is essential that a part of those budgets should continue to be allocated to culture, to its diversity, and to the protection, particularly in the context of cultural production, to those who are weakest, so that our great cultural wealth here in Europe can continue to survive. Then there are our foreign policies, and I welcome, as you all do, the fact that we have just won this battle at international level – and it is only a battle, not the whole war – in managing to persuade the majority of the nations of the world to follow us in our fight so that, with regard to international trade as well, we can preserve our cultural stakes. We do indeed need principles to follow if the Union’s action, both within and beyond its borders, is to reflect our commitment to that cultural diversity which is our source of life.
I believe that this process, which is absolutely unique in Europe, and which we must have invented because it would not have been possible to copy it since it did not yet exist anywhere else, has served as an example throughout the world. I often hear that sentiment expressed on my travels to various countries, large or small, where people say to me, ‘The way in which you protect your minorities and support your cultures, whether large or small, important or less important, is leading the way for us to follow’. What better thing could we give to the world than to show it the way to preserve cultural heritage, to preserve what is most important to people, a way that involves a willingness to give priority to our hearts rather than to the market.
That is what it is all about, preserving our traditions, our cultures, our future talents, our young people seeking to express themselves. We must preserve them so that those young people can continue to express themselves in the future. It is this human dimension of the policy that we must strengthen, at local, regional, national and international level, because cultural diversity, ladies and gentlemen, is universal: we cannot talk about ‘my cultural diversity’ because cultural diversity is also the cultural diversity of other people, people who, as a general rule, are unable to express themselves unless we help them to express themselves. I also believe that it is important that this report on cultural diversity comes just after a report on development aid. It is a fitting symbol, because development aid is also a form of assistance which helps to preserve the culture of those who do not have the means of preserving it themselves. Therefore our universal action in this direction is very important.
It is obvious that within the Union we should preserve our capacity to support our diverse cultures by means of local, regional, national and European funding, and the Commission is committed to the full implementation of Article 151(4), which makes it compulsory to take into account, horizontally, the cultural diversity within all the other cultures. I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that it has become a reflex action for the Commission, even for those Commissioners who have responsibilities in sectors such as the economy, external trade or international affairs, to take into consideration the fact that cultural diversity is a part of our lives.
Therefore, our action, in this sense, is very important, and we shall not be sparing in our efforts here. I do not have sufficient human resources to undertake to make reports on what we are doing. I prefer to invest what human resources I do have in taking action rather than in commenting on possible action. That is why I shall not be able to issue any supplementary reports. However, we are in the process of drawing up a report on cultural expenditure in the context of the Structural Funds. I believe that this is very important, because the largest amount of expenditure on culture within the Union does not come under the heading of the ‘Culture 2000’ programme, but rather from the Structural Funds. I therefore believe that it is very important to look at the figures.
Moreover, I am in complete agreement with the idea of strengthening diversity in our cooperation and development policies with third countries. There cannot be diversity without exchanges, in all countries and in all forms of expression, and I undertake to remind the Commissioners responsible for external relations – which is not difficult because they are already convinced of it – of the importance of making provision, in our foreign policies, for a cultural aspect, which is the human aspect and which is of primordial importance. I do not need to remind you of what we have already achieved, over a period of very many years, with our ACP partners or of what we initiated with our Mediterranean partners. However, what we are doing with all our partners is something new, and is perhaps in the process of becoming, thanks to Parliament among others, one of the new policies which are forging ahead.
I recently visited China. What were people talking about there? They were talking about culture and about cultural diversity. Moreover, the Chinese are supporting us within UNESCO. The Chinese were also talking about education, and all this in a huge country like China, which is counting on Europe to help it to preserve its cultural diversity. You can see, then, that we have committed ourselves to a worldwide trend which is very important, hence my satisfaction as regards the battle that we won in UNESCO. It was not easy, but nevertheless we succeeded, in UNESCO, in persuading the nations of the world to stand side by side with us in order to preserve that which we all hold most dear. I do not doubt for a moment that, now that the General Assembly of UNESCO has decided to create an international instrument for the preservation of cultural diversity, that instrument will see the light of day and it will be a strong instrument. We shall be working with this end in view, not only within Europe, but also in all our international relations. In the same way as we worked in order to win the battle, we shall continue to work in order to win the war."@en1
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