Brussels, 04/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament has finally adopted the "Culture 2000" programme by approving on Wednesday the Vasco Graca Moura Report (Portuguese, EPP). "Culture 2000" is, for the 2000-2004 period, to replace the three existing European programmes in the field of culture (Ariane for books, Kaleidoscope for the living arts and Raphael for heritage). In the conciliation procedure, on 9 December, the Council and European Parliament agreed on a budget of 167 million euro over five years (1 January 2000 to 31 December 2004). The Fifteen formally adopted this decision on 24 January within the Council. All that remained was for Parliament to do likewise in plenary, in accordance with the co-decision procedure.
During the debate in plenary, several MEPs placed emphasis on the low level of the budget decided on for "Culture 2000" and hoped that it would be upwardly reviewed on the programme's assessment once it has been up and running for two years. A possibility that Mrs. Reding, European Commissioner for Culture, has not rule out. The rapporteur and members of different political groups also underpinned the need to alter the rules for voting in Council as applied for the adoption of this type of programme. Indeed Ministers of the Fifteen had to vote through unanimity, which greatly reduced Parliament's margins in negotiations, despite implementation of the co-decision procedure between the two institutions.
With the programme having been adopted, the European Commission will now be able to proceed with the selection of projects to finance. "So that operators in the field of culture may anticipate the calls for proposals to follow and put their projects together, an information memo will be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities (OJEC) end-February", say its services.
The calls for proposals for the year 2000 will appear in the OJEC in March. Operators will have two months in which to submit their projects. The programme's budget for this year is some 33 million euro. It will, notably, cover spending earmarked for the nine "European Capitals of Culture" for the year 2000. According to Mrs. Reding's spokesperson, it will also finance 10 to 15 cooperation projects organised by cultural networks (entertainment co-production, joint exhibitions, etc., with aid of some 1 million euro per action) and from 150 to 200 specific projects in favour of new forms of creation and cultural expression.