Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-04-Speech-2-353"
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"en.20060404.25.2-353"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I want to give my honourable friend Mrs Pack an explanation as regards the letter. All members of parliament – I say this for your benefit Mrs Pack – receive letters urging us to support amendments tabled by our honourable friends. This is for the simple reason that we cannot all know the content of the hundreds of amendments tabled. I receive such letters, just like everyone else.
Now, as regards a comment made by another honourable friend, the committee chairmen exercise their right, like all members of parliament, to table amendments and, even when they believe that they may not be approved in committee, they also have the right – which is not contrary to the Rules of Procedure – to table them in plenary. I think this is something we all do.
To come back to the point, the cultural capitals are today still the biggest and best organised political institution in Europe. No other cultural action in the European Union has the same range today or, most importantly, the same projection and mass participation on the part of citizens.
In addition, it is hard to think of many other modern European initiatives in the field of culture which have constituted a standard. However, experience has shown, as other honourable Members mentioned, that certain specific aspects of this institution could go no further.
The main need is to improve the selection method of cultural capitals. This is something that has been done and the honourable Members who participated in the previous committee chaired by Michel Rocard worked a great deal on this. The current framework really does not safeguard competition, as we have heard.
Another important issue is that the European dimension is often missing from the programme; I have found this to be true of cultural events which I have attended within the framework of three or four cultural capitals.
The new proposal, on which our rapporteur, Mrs Prets, has done a very good job, tries to reconcile the various viewpoints both within Parliament and within the Council.
Finally, I want to say a couple of words about the prize. It is important, as the Commission proposed, that there should be this prize in honour of Melina Mercouri. The proposal that the prize should carry her name was no coincidence on the part of the Commission or, of course, on the part of the 25 Council representatives who accepted it, because Melina Mercouri was the inspiration, the artist who worked the whole time she was Minister of Culture for this prize to be established. It was therefore her idea and I think that it is important for it to bear her name in future. Of course, there has been a compromise in relation to the initial proposal.
To finish, I should like to add that the cultural capitals are embraced by the European Union. At the same time, however, apart from independence of choice, what the Member States need as a guideline is to determine better the methods of intervention mainly in infrastructures if not in programmes."@en1
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