Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it seems that the Council – incidentally, the Council is not with us – has engineered a kind of Barcelona for culture. By that I mean that objectives are identified, indicators established and evaluations requested. Is that not actually the situation we find ourselves in when we draw up a mid-term evaluation report on Culture 2000 and realise that several problems have still to be resolved? There are plenty of problems. Culture 2000 could certainly be criticised for lack of transparency, difficulties over selection, in short, for everything related to method. Nonetheless, it is abundantly clear that method is not the only issue at stake in Culture 2000. We seem to have reached a turning point. The difficulties we have come up against in Culture 2000 – and when I say we, I am referring to both Parliament and the Commission – have arisen because we are now required to progress, to move on rather than set up yet another programme. Previously we had several small programmes; we now have a single large one. What then did we find now we have a single large programme? We found that in the ten years following Maastricht we have indeed succeeded in putting in place some 2 500 projects involving 12 000 operators. The other side of the coin, however, is that between 1996 and 2000, 8 000 projects involving 40 000 operators were rejected. It is abundantly clear that demand far exceeds what we can supply, and that the problem confronting us is not merely one of method. We must therefore seek other solutions beyond how best to see this programme through to its conclusion. Last week, I was surprised – pleasantly surprised, that is – when I heard the Culture Minister speaking for the presidency and calling for the implementation of Article 151. Article 151 of the Maastricht Treaty should indeed be implemented, but if you study the text of that article it appears to be an incentive. Fostering, support and encouragement are certainly called for. More is probably needed. Bear in mind that we are also discussing education today, and we know that education is forging ahead precisely because we moved beyond providing encouragement. We now take decisions. Perhaps when the Convention meets and discussions on a new approach and redrafting a number of key texts are held, Article 151 should be reviewed from a perspective other than its mere implementation. Obviously, there is more to all this than the problems we are confronted with in connection with Culture 2000 and culture in general and which are budgetary in nature. The budget is not simply a cash register; there is the issue of unanimity as against qualified majority. Matters of principle need to be discussed. Referring back to what previous speakers said on the size of projects, citizenship, promotion of citizenship, encouragement and support for creativity, clearly, both parties should be involved. Nonetheless, each should retain its particular approach whilst working together. What should the role of Member States be? What should their initiatives involve? What should the European Union do? These, Commissioner, are the reasons why I wanted to propose that we move towards a Barcelona for culture. IN THE CHAIR: MRS CEDERSCHIÖLDVice-President

Political group: GUE-NGL