- the composition of the Committee, and the Convention was very clear in Article 5 that the Committee was an intergovernmental body in favour of safeguarding intangible heritage.
- 442. The delegation of Palestine remarked on the excellent summary by the Philippines that explained the rationale behind these amendments, and noted that, following consultations, many delegations had been consulted and supported the amendments. It also fully agreed with Cuba, but stressed that all these were details that would be discussed anyway, because the problems relating to the working language, the Bureau, or the delivery of documents also existed for the different Assemblies and Conventions. For this reason, it was necessary to have a global view of the Rules of Procedure of all the organs of the culture Conventions. Thus, at this stage, the Assembly was not ready to debate the content when the idea was simply to have a global view of the recommendations, and thus harmonization could be dealt with at the next meeting. The delegation thus proposed going straight to the draft resolution.
- 443. The delegation of Turkey fully agreed with the previous interventions of the Philippines and Cuba and thanked the Members States for having submitted their amendments to the Rules of Procedure. The delegation found the amendments proposed by Chile, Ecuador and Palestine to be good starting points for ongoing reflections. The deliberations on the Rules of Procedure should continue so as to recognize: i) the harmonization and efficiency of the Bureau; ii) the revision of the deadlines for submitting proposals; iii) the consideration of procedural matters in line with recommendations of the Working Group on Governance; and iv) the Secretariat's related follow -up report. While achieving these goals, concerns about the participatory transparency of the sessions of the General Assembly should also be addressed and it supported the draft amendments submitted by the delegations.
- 444. The delegation of Ecuador endorsed the remarks by the previous delegations, particularly that of Cuba regarding the intergovernmental character of the Committee, which needed to be maintained, as indicated in Recommendation 68 [on the need to reaffirm the intergovernmental nature of the Bureaus]. Indeed, the idea of a certain level of expertise should also be reaffirmed, and the delegation believed that any amendments that went against this recommendation made by the General Conference would not be appropriate. With regard to the comments by Palestine, the delegation conceded that there were amendments put forward by certain countries while other countries perhaps did not have the time to do so. However, the delegations and the Secretariat had clarified that all these amendments needed to be reviewed and be seen by the working groups before the next General Conference, and perhaps they could be adopted at the next meeting of the General Assembly.
- 445. The delegation of Portugal thanked the Secretariat for the presentations on both agenda items 12 and 13. It concurred with the many interventions that the Assembly should proceed in parallel, while keeping in mind that every governing body was sovereign, as was this General Assembly, but that an effort nonetheless had to be made to address the commonalities within the different culture Conventions in the Rules of Procedure, where appropriate. However, the Assembly should recall that it had already attempted to create synergies among the six different culture Conventions and there were already structures to promote synergies, which was a good starting point. With the help of States Parties, the delegation did not think it would be difficult to try to harmonize the Rules of Procedure of the different culture Conventions in the work ahead. The delegation supported the amendments presented.
- 446. The delegation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines echoed the sentiments regarding the amendments and thanked the countries that had presented these amendments. The delegation understood that they would be adopted in 2020 at the next General Assembly, as the General Assembly should decide on the amendments after the harmonization of the Rules of Procedure. The delegation remarked that the English and French versions presented were not the same, especially the amendments presented by Palestine.
- 447. The Chairperson proceeded with draft resolution 13 on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis: Paragraph 1, citing the document examined and its annex; Paragraph 2, recalling previous