Toespraak door Prinses Margriet bij de opening van de Conferentie Sharing Cultures
Dear Mr Opstelten,
State Secretary Ms Van der Laan,
Mr Van der Pas,
And dear guests and participants!
It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the 'Sharing Cultures' conference. We are all of us aware that Europe and the European Union face enormous challenges at present. I imagine that we all share the conviction that culture matters more than ever in drawing Europe's citizens together.
There is a well-known but perhaps wrong-headed statement which says: "We have created Europe, now we have to create Europeans". The fact of the matter is that the 450 million citizens of the newly enlarged EU will decide for themselves just how European they feel. This aspect of their identity cannot be engineered from above.
Yet we are not powerless to act. We can assist a European civil society to emerge. The Constitutional Treaty agreed in June paves the way for a broad understanding of the nature of the Union: an understanding which includes such important values as cultural diversity. A new European Parliament was elected. It was difficult to detect among Europe's citizens a strongly shared sense of belonging based on common interests and responsibilities. This and other challenges call for vision, leadership and improved communication: key tasks for the soon-to-be-appointed Commission.
We must not forget that Europe is larger than the European Union, and that relations with the neighbours of the enlarged European Union will be crucial for the future of the continent. Culture matters in all this, because community-building requires more than a common market. The Enlargement needs to be completed by an 'Enlargement of Minds'. 'Learning from each other' is the theme of the Dutch EU-Presidency. This means, for the people of Europe, increased curiosity, mutual understanding, better cooperation. The ECF calls it 'sharing cultures'.
"Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open" someone once said. At the heart of this conference is a plea for a cultural strategy for Europe.
Supported by hundreds of cultural institutions, organisations and networks throughout Europe who signed the 'cultural appeal', you will highlight some of the most urgent needs and make specific recommendations. We are optimistic that your contributions will affect the decision-making process for culture in Europe.
Last but not least, I would like to say a few words about the ECF. Fifty years ago, before The Treaty of Rome was even signed, the ECF came into being due to the efforts of its founding fathers - the Swiss philosopher Denis de Rougemont, Robert Schuman (its first President), and among others, my father, Prince Bernhard. They were passionately committed to unifying Europe through educational and cultural initiatives which were Europe-oriented. In the late 1960s and throughout the 70s, the ECF was responsible for groundbreaking work in the field of human sciences: such themes as the media, the environment, education and social policy were examined thoroughly in the light of a possible future for Europe.
The ECF initiated and was responsible for managing the Erasmus programme between 1987 and 1995. The Foundation runs its own programmes and awards grants, placing special emphasis on regions like South East Europe and on the neighbours in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the neighbours across the Mediterranean. Accompanied by a diversity of partners, it continues to provide civil society with a strong platform for the advocacy of cultural cooperation in Europe. The ECF organised, for example, together with partners such as EFAH (the European Forum for the Arts and Heritage) and the European Policy Centre a hearing for culture in the new Constitutional Treaty in Brussels, accompanied by an Open Letter signed by prominent Europeans and published in many European papers.
With this conference the Foundation once again offers its services to Europe's civil society at a critical moment. We believe that the ECF can help the voice of the cultural sector to be heard.
We are grateful to the City of Rotterdam; to the Dutch Ministry for Education, Culture and Science; and to the State Secretary for Culture for supporting this meeting of 'the field'. It takes place in parallel with the Council meeting of EU Ministers of Culture and we will have the opportunity to present the outcome of this conference to the ministers on Tuesday.
We look forward to a fruitful conference!