Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on ‘the social dimension of culture’
Date: 2004-03-31
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: citizens' Europe, cultural policy

30.4.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 112/57

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on ‘the social dimension of culture’

(2004/C 112/17)

On 20 November 2003 the European Parliament decided to consult the European Economic and Social
Committee, under the last paragraph of Article 262 of the Treaty establishing the European Community,
on the social dimension of culture.

The Section for Employment, Social Affairs and Citizenship, which was responsible for preparing the
Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 3 March 2004. The rapporteur was Mr Le
Scornet.

At its 407th plenary session (meeting of 31 March), the European Economic and Social Committee adopted
the following opinion by 98 votes to zero, with four abstentions.

1.

Introduction

1.4 Owing to time pressure, the Committee initially concen-
trates in this opinion on three key areas.

1.1
The European Parliament and the European Economic
and Social Committee have decided to make the question of
the social dimension of culture a common theme, as they
consider that culture and social development are closely interre-
lated and that this relationship will be increasingly important
for European integration policy.

the

areas

in which civil

In a 1999 opinion (1) the Committee stated that: ‘If we
1.2
take the very broad definition of culture as a code of values
then culture also
that apply to the members of a society,
shapes
society operates’. The
Committee considers that culture – understood as a process
and a common form of thinking and acting – assigns key func-
tions to education and the participation of society. The draft
European Constitution is after all based on common values,
objectives,
fundamental rights and a new understanding of
democratic action. These components together make up the
foundation of a European concept of culture. The European
concept of culture also embraces strong social elements such as
solidarity, social cohesion, measures to combat marginalisation
and discrimination, as well as social integration. On the basis
of this approach, the Committee asked the European Conven-
tion that in future it be consulted on culture. All of this confers
a special responsibility in this field on the European Parliament,
as the democratic representative body of the people of Europe
and the European Economic and Social Committee, as the insti-
tutional representative of civil society organisations.

1.3
The European Parliament has rightly insisted on the obli-
gation to establish a common cultural basis and a European
civil area (2). This is all the more urgent since the predominance
of the national dimension of culture tends to re-emerge when-
ever complexity increases, and since enlargement, as well as
increasing complexity, brings into the Union people with very
different national histories, traditions and cultures in the Euro-
pean context.

(1) EESC opinion of 23.9.1999 on The role and contribution of civil
society organisations in the building of Europe – OJ C 329 of
17.11.1999

(2) Ruffolo Report – EP A5 – 0281/2001

2. What kind of European society do we want? Towards
interactions between economic,

a new ‘culture’ of
social and environmental practices:

2.1
In this context the social dimension of culture is a deci-
sive factor for building a European identity both within the
Union and externally. The attraction of Europe is not confined
to the scale and strength of the largest internal market in the
world, the level of GDP or the strength of the euro. Just as
attractive are the originality and relevance of a social and
cultural model which, on the strength of a shared heritage of
values, has learned and continues to learn to cope peacefully
with its cultural diversity and its social and political contradic-
tions.

2.2
The current changes in society, like the effects of globali-
sation, the ageing of the population, the growing importance
of information technology, the principle of gender equality
which is gradually becoming established and other radical
socio-economic changes pose enormous challenges for policy
in cultural, social and symbolic terms. Our societies can no
longer afford not to recognise and involve all their actors and
all their environments. As the European Year of the Disabled
showed, and the EESC's opinions and initiatives on the subject
have argued, they will be judged on the place and role they
give to the most disadvantaged and marginalised members of
society.

Should not

2.3
the traditional paradigms of hierarchical
command and ‘assisted dependence’ (cf. the various forms of
welfare state) give way now to a paradigm involving the active
participation of each person,
the
economic, social, family and cultural actors?

‘empowerment’ of all

i.e.

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2.4
Is not this active participation the sine qua non condi-
tion for a fulfilled, creative economic and social life? Must it
not therefore be also an ethical and economic imperative?
Respect and fulfilment for oneself and others, the primacy of
the principle of cooperation, are the shared characteristics of
contemporary European humanism and of the global competi-
tiveness of this integrated area.

social

Economic,

and environmental practices

2.5
are
constantly creating culture. The identification and assessment
of changes to the main cultural paradigms which occur in
these practices would make it possible to give an operational
value to the concept of ‘social dimension of culture’.

Ultimately this means that the relations between, and
2.6
responsibilities of, state, market and civil society will have to be
jointly rethought and redefined.

3. The effects of changes in the world of work on the

structure of society and cultural values

3.1
This opinion cannot seriously attempt to explore the
considerable changes in progress in these areas. It merely seeks
to show that such an exploration would certainly help to
provide a better explanation of the concept of
‘knowledge
society’ which is a key, dynamic aspect of European culture as
defined by the Lisbon Process.

The universal tendency to intellectualise all the aspects
3.2
of work,
including the ‘work’ of consumption, and the
increased role within them of relational, stylistic and creative
criteria, have crystallised remarkably in Europe. This phenom-
enon is undoubtedly at the heart of the differentials of competi-
tiveness, attractiveness, mutual respect and entrepreneurship
which Europe maintains and can develop in relation to the
other geo-cultural regions of the planet.

3.3 Moreover,
in a society undergoing such profound
change, the professions concerned with integration and media-
tion are in the forefront. The immense stresses experienced by
these professions go beyond the material and objective difficul-
ties encountered in this type of work. They question all the
points of reference for action based on the joint function of
solidarity and social control in our society. It is necessary to
decipher the transformation of symbolic area which constituted
the scope and vocational identity of these professions.

3.4
In such a society, one can no longer separate or priori-
tise the social dimension of culture and the cultural approach
to the social sphere. That is why the economic, the social and
the political can no longer be dissociated from artistic and
scientific work and activity. There need be no exploitation, and
the importance of artistic and scientific creation itself is consid-
erably strengthened. This makes it necessary, in particular, to
start considering the new forms taken by the cultural economy

(solidarity-based economy, funding sources based on mutual
benefit organisations).

4. A new culture of democracy

4.1
Social and cultural policies are not just sectoral policies
interaction as a whole. Cultural
but a ‘culture’ of political
democracy, understood as ‘cultural security’, ‘cultural reliability’
and ‘social and cultural governance’ needs to be promoted. It is
necessary now to initiate an open debate on the creation of
cultural rights/freedoms/responsibilities.

The main paradigms of cultural and social democracy

4.2
need to be rethought and developed:

— the educational paradigm (particularly by developing the
education
and

continuing

education

of

supply
throughout life)

of

— the paradigm of making the most of resources (by empha-
interpretations of

sising creative and communicational
culture and of the social sphere)

— the paradigm of mediation (with the creation of new
‘cultural standards’, particularly derived from situations of
social exclusion: this would be a bonus in terms of good
sense and humanity).

The wide range of issues involved in the task of devising
4.3
a true social and cultural democracy deserves to be thoroughly
discussed with the social movements, the cultural networks and
the social partners – not just between institutions. To that end,
one of the major challenges to be met is undoubtedly that of
the partners
establishing a cooperation ethic among all
concerned.

5. Recommendations

This first, and inevitably rough-and-ready, reflection on the
social dimension of culture leads the EESC to make a number
of proposals:

5.1 The

cultural

role of

the European Economic and Social

Committee

5.1.1
As a number of national economic and social councils
or equivalent institutions have already done, the EESC wishes
to affirm its cultural role more clearly than it has done up to
now – all the more so since, as it stated in an earlier opinion,
‘the development of civil society is a cultural process’ (1). That
is why the EESC intends to initiate an active dialogue on this
the EU institutions
subject with the national ESCs and all
(Parliament, Council, Commission and Committee of
the
Regions), and to be a forum for debates with civil society orga-
nisations on cultural development in a pluralist, dynamic and
innovative sense – a true forum in the service of sustainable
development and of the creative cultural industries (2).

(1) EESC opinion of 23.9.1999 on The role and contribution of civil
society organisations in the building of Europe – (Rapporteur: Ms
Anne-Marie Sigmund) OJ C 329 of 17.11.1999

(2) EESC opinion of 28.1.2004 on the cultural

industries in Europe

(CESE 102/2004) (Rapporteur: Mr Rodriguez Garcia-Caro)

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5.2 The gradual creation of a European observatory of cultural coop-

eration

The EESC proposes to continue consideration, with the
5.2.1
Commission and the European Parliament, of the European
Parliament's proposal to set up a European observatory of
cultural cooperation (1).

5.2.2
The EESC is not unaware of the limited conclusions of
the feasibility study on this parliamentary proposal carried out
at the Commission's request. While it fully agrees with these
conclusions, the Committee still does not regard them as suffi-
cient,
in that they aim simply to support the networks and
bodies which are active at present and review their funding,
create a web gateway and develop the collection of cultural
statistics (2).

5.2.3
That is why the EESC proposes that an own-initiative
opinion could rigorously define the objectives of a European
observatory of cultural cooperation, which the EESC, like the
EP, wishes to see set up. It could also check that this would
indeed be an inter-institutional and cross-frontier ‘network’,
with regional and national hubs, and achieving an effect of
synergy to make the most of all current players – public,
social-economy and private – and all experiments (including
those in the past which may be half forgotten). It should not be
yet another central
institution. This dynamic cooperation
would encourage a non-defensive development of the concept
of subsidiarity in terms of European cultural policy. It would
encourage Europeans' capacity to involve themselves directly in
the creation of this common cultural area, and thus to recog-
nise themselves in it. In this context, the EESC could offer to
act as a secretariat and centre for collection and use of an
authentic bank of data and knowledge, just as it could play the
role of a motor by proposing specific action plans.

5.2.4
From this viewpoint, account must be taken of the
considerable work of identification carried out by the Bilbao
European Agency and the Dublin Foundation. They detect and
develop ‘best practice’ and observe the cultural changes relating
to working conditions, jobs, welfare and social cohesion. They
reveal the assets which are ‘already there’ and which could
contribute to this European cultural observatory within a broad
vision of culture.

5.2.5
There are also many networks based on the premise of
culture as a social link, particularly in populations which are
marginalised or in the process of being marginalised (working-
class districts, declining industrial regions, abandoned rural
areas). (The study carried out for the Commission has already

Brussels, 31 March 2004

identified 65 such networks.) The EESC, which has organised
hearings where some of these expressed their views, agrees
with them on the need to bring them out of their isolation, and
to provide them with the resources to continue and develop,
which are still lacking. That is why, as well as a laboratory role
making it possible to disseminate tried and tested knowledge
and know-how and transfer it from one field to another, the
observatory of cultural cooperation should have an evaluation
role.

5.2.6
This task entails, first and foremost, ensuring that suffi-
cient account is taken of the cultural dimension in Community
policies and, more specifically, that it should become a means
of giving greater substance to the Culture 2000 and MEDIA
Plus programmes when they are renewed, so that they reflect
the radically new situation arising from enlargement and
encompass new areas of activity. Such an observatory could
possibly draw up its own annual report.

5.3 Continuous linkage and appropriate joint projects between the
European Parliament and the European Economic and Social
Committee in the cultural sphere

5.3.1
In the cultural field, it should be possible to establish
and publicise close cooperation between the two institutions
which represent the European peoples in their very different
ways, and to develop joint procedures and events.

An annual

5.3.2
joint meeting devoted to affirming a
‘Europe of culture’ could help to assess the developments
which will lead the Union from a community of rights to a
community of values – to set an annual objective of promoting
at least one truly shared cultural value.

5.3.3
Continuing the already rich experience of the annual
European capitals of culture, the first joint meeting of the two
institutions could set itself the objective of establishing an open
competition for proposals leading every two, three or four
years (why not with the frequency of the Olympics) to an
initiative involving each European country. Each of these coun-
tries would itself open up European culture to the world by
involving in the European initiative at least one partner from a
different cultural region.

In addition, the two institutions could help to set up a
5.3.4
European ‘task force’
cultural and artistic
to encourage
exchange in areas of conflict – both for conflict prevention and
as an element of post-conflict reconstruction.

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Roger BRIESCH

(1) Ruffolo Report – EP A5 – 0281/2001
(2) A feasibility study concerning the creation of a European observa-
tory of Cultural Co-operation (cf. Final Report to the European
Commission – 18 August 2003) http://europa.eu.int/comm/culture/
eac/sources_info/pdf-word/final_report_aout_2003.pdf