Brussels, 24/05/2005 (Agence Europe) - The first part of the “Education, culture and Youth Council” closed on Monday evening with points on culture, under the presidency of Octavie Modert, Luxembourg Secretary of State for culture, higher education and youth. The event was attended by Commissioner Jan Figel, in charge of education, culture and youth. Ministers formally noted the candidacies put forward for appointing two members of the jury responsible for designing the “European Capital of Culture” Claude Frisoni (Luxembourg) and Jeremy Isaacs (United Kingdom) have been officially designated by the Council for the second half of this year. The Luxembourg presidency also informed ministers of the adoption by the European Parliament last February of the Council's common position adapting the 1999 decision on the “European Capital of Culture” to enable new Member States to take part in it from 2009 onwards.
The Council also had an exchange of views on the mobility of European museum collections, in the perspective of elaborating an action plan for 2005-06. Ronald de Leew, Director of the Riijksmueum of Amsterdam presented ministers with the report elaborated by its experts' group and discussions allowed for an exchange on good practices between Member States within the limitations of national legislations that does not include the same measures (some of them, for example, allow for State guarantees and others do not). Jan Figel said that, “the 25 have different models, notably in regard to insurance and compensation. The question is not one of harmonisation but of creating an area that would allow for a certain compatibility”. The Commissioner said that the debate had allowed for the first landmarks to be set out for the future action plan. Certain specific problems were raised, such as the difficult of meeting the location costs for modest collections.
Ministers concluded the session with a first exchange of views on the draft “Citizens for Europe” programme, which assures the continuity of the programme on civic participation and which aims to promote active European citizenship for 2007-13. All the delegations supported the programme objectives (bringing people closer in the different local communities for an exchange of experiences and opinions, promoting debates and reflection on European citizenship, making the idea of Europe more tangible to citizens by promoting European projects while preserving the memory of the past, intensifying intercultural dialogue through the participation of the whole of civil society). All the ministers deplored the lack of commitment of citizens to the European project (the referendums in France and the Netherlands were mentioned on the European constitution). Figel pointed out that “there is no European democracy without a Europe of citizens”. The Commissioner highlighted the cultural aspect of the programme, as culture “promotes awareness and is a factor in identity”. In this connection, some delegations from the new Member States alluded to the suffering of the people in the gulags, which ministers said should remain in the collective European memory in the same way as victims of the holocaust. The Latvian delegation, supported by Estonia, Lithuania and Hungary proposed the mentioning of violence under the Communist regime, in the Culture 2007 programme.