Madam President, in spite of Article 151 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, culture has been the poor relative in terms of the reduced range of programmes and financial, technical and human resources found for the European project. Some may say that the prevailing objectives fifty years ago when the “European home” in which we now live was founded were more specifically economic and social ones. It may also be said that European policies have suffered, throughout these five decades, from the innumerable and crazy whims that have held sway in a wide variety of situations and for a wide variety of reasons. However, in the spirit of Europe’s founding fathers, we must inevitably bear in mind the model for civilisation which led them to seek to establish lasting conditions for peace. This model for civilisation is rooted in deep cultural diversity. A Europe of national identities can live for a long time in peace and prosperity if this cultural diversity maintains its vitality and eliminates the small-mindedness and aggressiveness caused by resentments which, as a rule, give rise to excessively nationalistic feelings. If this cultural diversity is to succeed, it is vital that there should be mutual understanding and a sharing of the values of civic humanism, tolerance, knowledge and artistic and other forms of cultural expression which have taken root in Europe’s fertile soil, and which reflect the most noble and profound aspects of the human spirit. Therefore, for this understanding and sharing to be fully possible, they must be based on a concept of culture which involves the crucial dimension of European democracy. There is no doubt that genuine convergence, economic and social cohesion, the single currency, the fight against unemployment and social exclusion and even competition are all necessary to create conditions which can provide greater equality, greater development, a better quality of life, and better opportunities for the people of Europe. There is no doubt that the common security and defence policy could strengthen Europe’s identity and status on the world scene. There is no doubt that we aim to gain acceptance for our policy on defending human rights throughout the world. If, however, cultural policies cannot give a superior and clearly distinctive meaning to all of this, neither Europe nor European democracy will be able to make much progress. It is through culture alone that millions upon millions of our citizens are able to recognise themselves as Europeans and can cultivate, develop and broaden this feeling of being part of Europe. This, Madam President, is the kind of impetus that European politics needs. We talk about culture, cultural cooperation, symbolic action, major initiatives and networks of cultural agents and operators, but any mention of the European institutions having a cultural policy is carefully avoided. This, by the way, would not impinge on the principle of subsidiarity in the slightest. We even speak rhetorically, sometimes in quite reasonable terms, about the importance of culture for the European project, and yet ridiculous appropriations are allocated to programmes supposed to serve over 300 million people, on a permanent, ongoing basis. These programmes are designed to give them access to a heritage that belongs to them and which should stimulate an active and interactive appetite for contact with the highest values and with the great works in which they are represented. The people of Europe whom we represent here have the right to demand a more consistent, effective and above all a more European attitude from the Union’s institutions. These thoughts are by way of an introduction to this House’s consideration of the joint text of the Culture 2000 programme, which was approved by the Conciliation Committee on 9 December last year. Let us remember that Culture 2000 establishes a unique financing and programming instrument for cultural cooperation. The conciliation procedure yielded satisfactory solutions to almost all the amendments adopted at second reading. This means that Parliament’s basic understanding can reasonably be considered to be have been preserved, particularly the political priority to be given to establishing conditions for actions under the Culture 2000 programme to reach the greatest possible number of people. With regard to the budgetary aspects of this, Parliament’s delegation came up against the Council’s intransigence on the issue of increasing the appropriations from the EUR 167 million that were originally earmarked. It was still set on a solution which would mitigate this position. And this was only made possible by Commissioner Reding’s personal commitment to finding a constructive solution. Thanks to her, the Commission committed itself to presenting a report before 30 June 2002 on the operation of the programme, in which it will state whether the available financial resources are adequate or not. It may possibly also offer a review of this item. I cannot hide the fact that the success of this proposal will depend in the final analysis on an institutional mechanism being found which corresponds to the basic meaning of the word “conciliation”. Nevertheless, I shall conclude my speech by proposing to this House that it should vote in favour of the joint text adopted by the Conciliation Committee for the Culture 2000 programme and I wish it every success.

Political group: PPE-DE