Brussels, 15/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - In Strasbourg on 19 and 20 November, the Council of Europe is organising a conference on "the new information technologies: a vehicle for culture or a steam roller?" Council of Europe Secretary General Walter Schwimmer and UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura will open the conference that will bring together a hundred or so specialists of new information technologies and culture officials from Europe and Canada.
Participants will analyse the results of work carried out over the past two years by the Council of Europe so as to come up with the major outlines of a European policy intended to have culture and education benefit from the application of new information technologies in the respect of the values it defends. They will also define areas in which the Council of Europe and UNESCO will have to pursue their efforts, and propose joint actions. Debates will mainly be on the stakes for culture of trade agreements, access to knowledge, the place of artistic creation and cultural diversity in national plans, the protection of creation and the on-line reproduction of works, support for cultural enterprise.