Brussels, 23/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - Ministers for Cultural Affairs and Ministers for the Audio-visual sector met up on 23 May under the chairmanship of Ms Pilar Del Castillo Vera. The Council adopted two resolutions. The first involved European cultural co-operation and the second, the maintaining of digital content in the extension of the Culture 2000 Programme until 2005. Here are the full details of the agenda
Co-operation in the cultural field: Ministers adopted a Resolution involving a new cultural co-operation work plan based on the work carried out in this area by the Spanish Presidency. This plan aims to discuss the main themes and possibly elaborate new joint strategies to locate culture at the heart of European integration and take into account cultural aspects within the framework of other Treaty provisions. This work plan will be implemented as soon as possible by the successive Presidencies, in collaboration with the Commission. It will focus on the following themes: added European value; access and visibility of cultural action within the European Community; "horizontal aspects" (synergies with other sectors, good practices exchanges, development and promotion of mobility and the movement of cultural works, the means that will encourage the development of the cultural industries); dialogue between cultures, co-operation between Member States and participation of new Member States; international cultural co-operation. Other areas for co-operation could also be considered. Ms Del Castillo stressed that "the adoption of the Resolution is a great success for the Spanish Presidency". "This Resolution will be really useful for developing European cultural action in the future", she added.
Programme 2000: Ministers were unanimous in support of the extension for the programme until 2005, so too was the Commission. Commissioner Viviane Reding pointed out to Ministers the reason why they were going to extend the programme until 2005 and 2006, which is the best option for consolidating cultural action in the current enlargement context and the revision of the budgetary perspectives in the future IGC. Presented with these uncertainties, Ministers agreed that an extension of Programme 2000 would effectively enable anew instruments to be developed on the basis of the work in the current programme (whose results will be known at the end of the year). The scenario envisaged will occur in three stages: 1) Elaboration of a proposal for running a programme based on Programme 2000 for 2005 and 2006 with possible modifications; 2) Preparation, in parallel of pilot projects that will figure in the next programme; 3) Concrete preparation of a basis for a new revised and corrected programme that goes even further.
Maintaining digital content: the Council approved a Resolution on the maintaining of numeric content, which constitutes the "memory of tomorrow" and which is essentially to safeguard our cultural heritage. The resolution proposes a deeper analysis of the following measures: stimulate the implementation of the cultural conservation policies and digital heritage, as well as their access (namely, in setting up co-operation mechanisms between Member States and exchange of experiences and in supporting conservation agencies; - raising awareness about issues by the intermediary of networks facilitating the sharing of experiences, the adoption of appropriate standards and the assessment and diffusion of good practices; studying the necessary investments and analysing their cost and requirement; improving the skills base by putting into place knowledge and skills exchange mechanism; stimulating research in order to identify problems and solutions thanks to the implementation of research programmes, technological experience and experimental applications on a wide scale.