Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this motion for a resolution has arisen from some simple but not obvious observations. The first observation concerns a lack of coordination among the cultural programmes of the Union, especially between those included in Culture 2000 and those in the programmes financed by the Structural Funds. The second observation is especially that there is a gap between the programmes managed at Union level and national cultural policies, based purely and simply on the reciprocal provision of information. A positive response to these two observations depends on the recognition of two points: first, the principle of subsidiarity not only does not exclude cooperation but demands it. It must not be understood in terms of sectarian cultural protectionism, but in a positive and active sense as a fertile encounter of diverse cultures. The second point to recognise is that the richness and specific character of European civilisation lies in the diversity of its national and regional cultures. Therefore, the expression ‘unity in diversity’ has been chosen as the motto of the report. European culture is clearly not a homogeneous unit: it is a collection of diverse cultures, each with its own historical roots and its area of radiation; I might almost say it is a symphony in the technical musical sense of the word, in that it develops through consonance and dissonance: a symphony not created by a single composer, however, but resulting from the course of history, through dramatic conflicts and occasional religious, nationalist and ideological massacres. Nonetheless, today, at last, there is a convergence on common humanistic values of liberty, equality and, if not fraternity – which would be too much to ask – then at least mutual tolerance. These are values which are recognised in a common area; they are distinguished both from distinctly consumer cultures and from fundamentalist ones, and are based upon the great traditions of Christianity, liberalism and socialism. A common European culture was, besides, recognised at the time of Thomas More and Erasmus of Rotterdam, when Erasmus rode to Oxford on a mule to take his friend In Praise of Folly. There was a lingua franca but no monetary union, and so on his return his honestly earned pounds sterling were confiscated from him. Today there are no more journeys on mule-back because we use aeroplanes, there is no longer a lingua franca but we have our wonderful simultaneous interpreters. In short, all the material conditions are in place for a European culture to spread its message of peace and civil order throughout the world, because Europeans can tap into a rich vein of cooperation in the cultural field. Such cooperation is affirmed, or rather invoked in the Treaties and official speeches, but funding does not follow as it could and should do. Instead, concrete decisions end up loudly contradicting the solemn declarations, decisions and non-decisions, like the unfortunate one at Nice which paralysed European cultural policy. This motion for a resolution is an attempt to react to this paralysis, to pragmatically encourage cooperation among European countries in the field of culture, beginning with the obvious requirements of adopting a common vocabulary, comparable statistics, the reciprocal provision of information, systematic comparisons, a selection of best practices and the opening up of areas in which it seems most suitable and appropriate to adopt common approaches and policies. I ardently hope, Mr President, that the Commission will match its efforts to the aims and give the resolution the attention it deserves, placing the problem of culture and cultural cooperation at the centre of the great European project. We are different and united at the same time: this is an opportunity to show it!

Political group: PSE