Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-14-Speech-4-037"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050414.4.4-037"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, the proposed Unesco Convention sets out principles on the sovereignty of States and their right to take the steps that they wish to take as regards culture, but aims as its prime objective to remove it from the jurisdiction of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). This arises from Articles 13 and 19 and the communication of 14 September 2004 of the International Liaison Committee of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity distributed by Unesco itself.
I quote, ‘the Convention must provide for a clear engagement, in unambiguous terms, by which States commit to uphold the objectives of this Convention in other fora, notably by abstaining from liberalisation commitments on culture in the context of international trade agreements’. This is not only tantamount to enshrining chauvinism, isolation, or worse, new powers to ‘police’ and block direct and fruitful contact between cultures. The complicated part is that hundreds of specifications feature on this non-exhaustive list of cultural goods attached to the draft; games, leisure activities and sports, culinary traditions, costumes, cultural tourism, pottery, textiles, embroidery, baskets, glassware, jewellery, leather goods, wood, metal, furniture, interior decorating, designer goods, and the list goes on. Anything you care to name is on there.
The EC Treaty covers cultural development and respect for national and regional diversity in Article 151. This only concerns Member State cultures, however. When it comes to third countries and international organisations, the Treaty only refers to cooperation in the sphere of culture. What we ought to do is to satisfy the Member States – all Member States – in a Europe of national identities that are sometimes in fierce conflict with one another, and that jealously guard their specific characteristics, but a Europe in which the sovereignty of each Member State is completely safeguarded.
The Treaty prohibits any harmonisation of Member States’ legislative and regulatory provisions in this area. To what extent, therefore, is the Commission involved in the proposed Convention? Is the Commission’s intention to drag Europe indirectly into the kind of harmonisation forbidden by its own Treaty? Will it want to subject Europe to the scope of the WTO, which has a dangerous abundance of situations that have unforeseen consequences?"@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples