EN Official Journal of the European Union C 393/8

Council conclusions of 26 November 2012 on Cultural Governance

2012/C 393/03

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

RECOGNISING:

1. that culture with its inherent elements of creativity and innovation is a value in itself. It has a significant public value and contributes to the achievement of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth as set out in Europe 2020 strategy and its flagship initiatives (1);

2. the objectives assigned to the European Union in the field of culture by Article 167 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union;

3. that cultural policy is of a horizontal nature and therefore transversal cooperation across sectors and between the different levels of governance is required;

4. that there is a need to turn the numerous challenges faced by cultural and creative sectors, including a rapidly changing environment driven by the digital shift and globalisation, into new growth and jobs opportunities, which requires action to be taken at different levels of governance;

5. that powerful dynamics take place at the borderlines between cultural and creative sectors and that significant benefits result from establishing links and partnerships across sectors; therefore there is a need to adopt holistic approaches to cultural governance;

6. that ‘cultural governance’ should be understood both as a method for delivering cultural policies as well as a tool for deepening the integration of culture into the public policy agenda by coordinating cultural policies with other sectoral policies;

7. the importance of the open method of coordination used for the implementation of the Council Work Plan for Culture (2) which is one of the means of cultural governance at the European level.

RECOMMENDS THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FOLLOWING TWIN-TRACK APPROACH TO THE ISSUE OF CULTURAL GOVERNANCE:

I. PROMOTING EVIDENCE-BASED POLICY-MAKING

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION:

CONSIDERS that promoting evidence-based policy-making and strengthening the links between culture, economy, education, research and innovation are of the utmost importance to Member States, in particular in times of economic downturn when there is a need for cultural policies to be even more effective, efficient and sustainable;

WELCOMES the results of the expert work on cultural statistics, including in the context of the ESSnet-Culture project (3), carried out jointly by Eurostat and a group of five Member States, which lays down a framework for significant improvement in statistical information on the contribution of culture through comparatively minor and resource-efficient adjustments in national statistical systems;

INVITES THE MEMBER STATES:

— to support an evidence-based approach to cultural policy-making at a national, regional and local level, making use, wherever appropriate, of evaluation and impact assessment instruments that take account not only of quantitative but also of qualitative indicators;

— to promote cultural policy-related aspects in other policy areas;

— to promote collaboration and networking between cultural and educational institutions, research centres and cultural and creative enterprises in order to collect and process research results and disseminate them among policy-makers;

— while making the best use of the existing structures, to seek to ensure that those research results are taken into account, if appropriate and relevant, by government departments and relevant public administration bodies, when designing their research and formulating their sectoral policies.

INVITES THE MEMBER STATES AND THE COMMISSION, WITHIN THEIR RESPECTIVE COMPETENCE, TO:

— stimulate the exchange of experiences, foster the dissemination of best practice in the area of cultural policy and promote synergies between Member States as regards academic research relating to culture and cultural governance;

— designate contact points responsible for pooling together and coordinating prospective studies and research in Ministries responsible for Culture or in other public bodies in charge of cultural policies as well as in the Commission, and encourage their networking at European level;

— deploy, as soon as possible, the common statistical framework and methodology developed by ESSnet-Culture with a view to producing reliable, comparable and up-to-date information on the social and economic impact of culture and creative sector, and continue to work on future priorities on the basis of recommendations issued by ESSnet-Culture (4);

— promote the continued development of comparable statistics on culture by Eurostat, in collaboration with national statistical institutes (5) and the Ministries responsible for Culture or other public bodies in charge of cultural statistics;

— promote exchange of experience and initiate work, with the participation of Eurostat, on ‘satellite accounts’ (6) on culture which will help the assessment of the contribution of culture to the economy, with particular attention to cultural employment.

II. PROMOTING SYNERGIES AND DEVELOPING INTEGRATED STRATEGIES FOR A MORE HOLISTIC APPROACH TO CULTURE

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

CONSIDERS that all levels of governance, with local and regional authorities playing a particular role, must pull together in order to fully harness the economic and social potential of cultural and creative sectors; in this context, it TAKES NOTE OF the Commission Communication on ‘Promoting cultural and creative sectors for growth and jobs in the EU’ (7), adopted on 26 September 2012, which sets out a comprehensive strategy to this effect;

NOTES the importance of mainstreaming culture into other areas of public policy and decision-making processes at European, national, regional and local level;

UNDERLINES the importance of strengthening the involvement of the relevant civil society actors in order to make cultural governance more open, participatory, effective and coherent;

INVITES THE MEMBER STATES TO:

— strengthen cross-sectoral and interministerial cooperation on cultural matters and develop multi-layered integrated strategies involving all governance levels;

— encourage local and regional authorities, in the framework of local and regional development policies, to integrate cultural and creative sectors into their smart specialisation strategies (8) and to establish for this purpose effective partnership between civil society, the business sector and public authorities;

— encourage joint undertakings between public and private stakeholders to bring sustainability to investments in cultural and creative sectors, while favouring a better mix of hard (infrastructures) and soft (human capital) investments;

— promote a participatory approach to cultural policy-making by enhancing partnerships between public cultural institutions and civil society and by stimulating participation of civil society through appropriate dialogue and consultation.

INVITES THE COMMISSION TO:

— continue supporting cooperation and exchange of best practice between experts from Member States, including through the open method of coordination, and promoting structured dialogue with relevant stakeholder groups;

— continue to develop cross-sectoral cooperation within the Commission to fully exploit the potential of the cultural and creative sectors to promote smart growth, social cohesion and intercultural dialogue in Europe, and make full use of existing impact assessment procedures to mainstream culture in all relevant EU policies and actions.

INVITES THE COMMISSION, MEMBER STATES AND FUTURE PRESIDENCIES, WITHIN THEIR RESPECTIVE SPHERES OF COMPETENCE, TO:

— make full use, wherever appropriate, of existing and future funding programmes at EU level, including in the field of research and innovation (9);

— work jointly on a mid-term review and on the final report of the Work Plan for Culture 2011-14 and to develop monitoring methods to measure its implementation;

— share regularly and at an early stage information about EU policies and actions with direct or indirect impact on cultural issues and policies in order to ensure an effective European and national coordination; for this purpose it invites the COMMISSION to report about its relevant initiatives, including those in its annual work programme, to the Cultural Affairs Committee, and the FUTURE PRESIDENCIES to report on the work carried out by other Council preparatory bodies;

— designate contact points responsible for pooling together and coordinating prospective studies and research by the end of 2013;

— work together to ensure that these conclusions are acted upon.

AGREES TO:

— take stock of the implementation of these conclusions in 2015 (10).

(1) In line with the Council Conclusions of 19 May 2011 on the contribution of culture to the implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy (OJ C 175, 15.6.2011, p. 1).

(2) Conclusions of the Council and of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States, meeting within the Council, on the Work Plan for Culture 2011-14 (OJ C 325, 2.12.2010, p. 1).

(3) Final report of ESSnet-Culture:

http://ec.europa.eu/culture/news/20121026-ess-net_en.htm

(4) As stated in the Council conclusions of 19 May 2011.

(5) Without prejudice to the negotiations on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European statistical programme 2013-17 (COM(2011) 928 final — doc. 5089/12) and the negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-20.

(6) Satellite accounts provide a framework linked to the central accounts and which enables attention to be focussed on a certain field or aspect of economic and social life in the context of national accounts (http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=2385).

(7) 14256/12 (COM(2012) 537 final).

(8) Smart specialisation strategies are a tool through which regions or cities map their own assets and develop strategies, both in economic and social inclusion terms, based on their own distinctive profiles. They are part of ex-ante conditionality included in the proposed regulatory framework for cohesion policy 2014-20. (Commission Communication on the Regional Policy contributing to smart growth in Europe 2020, COM(2010) 553 final — doc. 14679/10.)

(9) These conclusions do not prejudge the negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-20.

(10) The stock-taking exercise can include the following: work progress on comparable cultural statistics, networking of the contact points to be designated by 2013, and functioning of information sharing on EU policies and actions impacting on culture. This list is not exhaustive.