Brussels, 15/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 13 July, MEPs and experts taking part in the public hearing of the European Parliament's culture and education committee on the pillage of cultural sites reiterated the urgent need for harmonised international legislation in this area. “With this meeting we have finally laid down the foundation for planning a European strategy to fight the destruction of cultural heritage by ISIS/Daesh and limit illegal trade, thanks to the representative of the International Criminal Court who confirmed that there are the legal conditions to consider intentional destruction as a crime against humanity and the possibility of involving UN blue helmets in this area”, said committee chair Silvia Costa (S&D, Italy).
The black market in cultural objects is a significant source of financing for terrorism, and given the breadth of recent cases of cultural pillaging from historic sites in the Middle East, especially Syria and Iraq, MEPs said they believed an urgent response was needed. The recent example of voluntary restitutions of art objects listed as having an illicit provenance could encourage the European member states to ratify existing international conventions quickly and to do more to enforce this legislation, with tough sanctions against traffickers, said experts. They also propose Europe's participation in the creation of safe havens for cultural objects as a temporary way of protecting cultural objects and controlling the black market for them. The MEPs' calls to action will not remain unheeded. Representatives from the European Commission who attended the hearing said that on their side a study would soon be carried out on the trafficking of art objects on EU territory, focusing on imports, in order to ascertain the extent to which more detailed harmonised legislation is needed in this domain. (Isabelle Lamberty)