Cultural Policy

Thursday Oct 18th - 9.30 -11.00

Chair Person: Spyros Mercouris -General Coordinator of Athens European Cultural Capital 1985

Speakers of the session on Cultural Policy

9.30 -11.00
- Chair Person: Spyros Mercouris - General Coordinator of 'Athens1985'
- Cultural Policy of the Municipality of Athens
  Sofi Daskalaki Mitilinaiou - President of the Board of the Cultural Centre of the Municipality of Athens
- Cultural Policy, the Arts, Vision, Productivity and Quality of Life
  Michael D. Higgins - former Minister of Culture, Ireland and MP of Irish Parliament
- Continuity of EU Cultural Policy: Istanbul 2010 - a European Cultural City already in dialogue
  Nuri M. Colakoglu - Coordinator of Istanbul 2010
- Children’s Imagination, the truth of the world – the experience of Kids' Guernica
  Takuya Kaneda - Prof. of Art Education, Tokyo

Spyros Mercouris, Nuri M. Colakoglu, Guy Feaux de la Croix, Sofi Daskalaki-Mitilinaiou

Simone Beck, Carin Fisher, Takuya Kaneda, Spyros Mercouris

Reference: Communication for a European agenda for culture in a globalizing world

European Union - Agenda for Culture

“Culture and creativity are important drivers for personal development, social cohesion and economic growth. Today's strategy promoting intercultural understanding confirms culture's place at the heart of our policies,” said José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, on 10 May 2007.
On the same day, the Commission adopted an important strategy document on culture in the form of a Communication, which proposes a European agenda for culture in a globalizing world.

Objectives for a European agenda

The agenda has three sets of objectives:

to promote cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue in Europe;
to promote culture as a catalyst for creativity and innovation in the context of the Lisbon Strategy for jobs and growth. Indeed, the culture and creative sectors – television, cinema, music, performing arts, entertainment, etc. – in the EU generated €654 billion in 2003 (2.6% of the Union’s GDP);
to ensure that culture becomes a key component in the EU’s external relations so as to build bridges with other parts of the world. In this context, the Commission is proposing the creation of an EU-ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries) Cultural Fund to support the distribution of ACP cultural goods.

A structured and flexible framework

The new strategy proposes a co-operative approach between the Commission and Member States which is both structured and flexible. This Open Method of Coordination, which has been used successfully in other policy areas, involves agreeing common objectives and regularly following up progress towards them.

The Commission has also suggested that a Cultural Forum should be created for consulting stakeholders.
Website: http://ec.europa.eu/culture/eac/communication/comm_en.html

For further information on this matter go to the website of Poiein kai Prattein at:

http://poieinkaiprattein.org/europe/european-agenda-for-culture-2007/

and for the creation of one of the three platforms, namely the Platform for Intercultural Europe (as based on the concept of ‘intercultural dialogue), see as well

http://poieinkaiprattein.org/europe/intercultural-dialogue---eu-decision/

Cultural Premise of the ECCM Symposium 'Productivity of Culture':

Although within the European Union culture has been recognized according to the European Agenda for Culture (2007), the EU cultural policy enacted upon is still far away from realizing the full potential of culture. The EU policy orientation during the ERDF Article 10 phase was by comparison much more advanced or at least policy guidelines were expressed as an apparent paradox to give recognition to real problems existing and in need to be resolved (instead of culture being exploited for economic purpose). Guidelines for the ERDF Article 10 program stated that projects funded by the EU should aim on the one hand to use culture for the creation of jobs while on the other hand the EU warned about over commercialization of culture to the point of risking to destroy cultural identities. Out of that emerged the slogan formulated by Irish poet Brendan Kennelly, "learn to use, but not abuse culture". That paradox has disappeared completely in the following years with ever greater focus on cultural industries and creativity as part of the innovation a knowledge economy would need to be competitive in the world. It would mean exploiting culture as if a resource like coal or something useful for production. To counter this trend the ECCM Symposium aims to address through the term 'Productivity of Culture' another understanding of culture.

Above all there is a need to recognize culture in terms of extending the meaning of 'economic and social cohesion' to spheres which contribute to how people live and work together by letting the imagination play a role. Most important as indicated already in his abstract, Michael D. Higgings wants to remind everyone that culture has something to do with telling the truth and with the sharing of things. For that to happen it requires authenticity and an integrity of memory. These are common things but never self-understood in a world which has made the consumption of everything into a prime node before anything else.

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