By Steve Austen, president of the European House for Culture and co-founder of the initiative A Soul for Europe.
On Monday 29 January 2007, I attended a remarkable event. The President of the European Commission José Manuel Durão Barroso had taken time off to debate with Daniel Barenboim during the “Brussels” lunch break, at the invitation of the initiators of the “Berliner Konferenz”, an informal group of convinced Europeans who believe that Europe should be seen above all as a cultural process and not exclusively as an economic and political project. This initiative found an unexpectedly strong and tenacious supporter in Barroso from his first public appearance.
Under the slogan: “A Soul for Europe”, a famous quote by Delors, the first Berlin Conference for European Cultural Policy was held on 26 and 27 November 2004. The name of the conference was somewhat misleading: the initiators were not concerned with discussing the cultural policy of the European Union, or even more generally, the role of cultural policy in the various member states, nay, it was, as mentioned, about defining the European unification process as such first and foremost as a cultural process.
Such a view naturally has repercussions for existing cultural policies of the member states and the Commission. If this view were to meet with the approval of politicians, at European and national level, cultural policy would presumably no longer take place exclusively within the more or less cosy walls of the culture ministries, but in all areas and at all levels of European and therefore national policy.
So, it is not surprising that initially the Berlin Conference’s aim to attract mainly politicians and decision-makers from outside the arts and culture sector was viewed somewhat strangely. The cultural sector was not ignored, but care was taken to ensure that the meeting did not degenerate into yet another oratio pro domo, as we are by now familiar with in the arts and culture sector: “art is important so there must be more money for it”.
Whereas initially a maximum of 400 participants was expected, it ended up being 700, including an incredible number of government representatives and politicians from almost all old, new, and upcoming member states, as well as Russia and Albania, to name but a few. More than 100 writing and filming media were present, participants were interviewed, camera crews were running into each other.
There, the brand-new boss of Europe spoke before the forum of European politics, business, culture and press about his ambition to pay explicit attention to the cultural component of the European unification process during his tenure. Of course, some scepticism is in order, especially when a politician barely a week after his appointment speaks fine words. Many thought Barroso had paid lip service to an idea of some respected European statesmen. But no, since his maiden speech on the subject, he has repeated his plea for intensive and direct Commission involvement in culture. In doing so, he was treading on thin ice.
He was well aware of this, as was demonstrated during an equally remarkable appearance on 4 December 2006 on the occasion of a “public hearing” for cultural organisations from all over Europe, organised by Jan Figel’s Directorate for Education and Culture. The hall in one of those dreary Brussels meeting factories was packed to capacity with some 400 representatives from and of the cultural sector, ripe and green mixed together.
Apparently, it had occurred to very few that the arrival of the President of the Commission is something extremely special. In the 25 years I had been following Brussels to some extent, I have never experienced this; indeed, even the presence of the Culture Commissioner at this kind of meeting with the field is highly unusual. Now no less than two of them were there! So there had to be something special going on here. It is just a pity that it was not noticed by those present. Yet there was every reason to: Barroso addressed the very limited room for manoeuvre the Commission has in the field of cultural policy. Barroso called for tackling the existing constraints and looking for innovative partnerships and pragmatic solutions. He even went so far as to propose drawing up a concrete agenda for culture, thereby distancing himself from the EU’s cultural policy to date. In Barroso’s view, culture and cultural policy will have to revolve around developing and fostering “European citizenship”.
From his first plea in December 2004, Barroso pushed the limits of the Maastricht Treaty in which the subsidiarity principle became guiding for EU interference in the cultural policies of member states. How relieved and happy European artists and cultural workers were when European governments meeting in Maastricht in 1991 decided to make an exception for cultural policy.
In the years before, the European institutions had worked in unison to obtain consensus for the creation of a common market for goods and services in which state aid in the form of subsidies to national companies and institutions would henceforth be prohibited. Not surprisingly, some were genuinely concerned that their national subsidy system would be eroded by applicants from other EU member states. After all, the open market would no longer tolerate protectionism. The prospect that Dutch artists would also have access to German and Belgian subsidies and vice versa could appeal to few, convinced as many in these and other countries were that after all, their home state had the most accessible and democratic subsidy system in the world.
While the Maastricht Treaty certainly led to greater security for artists and art institutions, it did also bring about an undesirable side effect. More and more member states began to regard domestic cultural policy as national policy. After all, culture was gradually becoming the only thing that still allowed member states to distinguish themselves from each other. Cross-border cultural cooperation was increasingly understood as national presentation abroad.
It is this tendency that ultimately opposes European unification, especially if it is to be understood as a cultural process. This inexorable logic cannot have escaped Barroso. In this, he was not entirely empty-handed: the Maastricht Treaty also offers opportunities to act alongside the untouchable art and culture policies of the member states. In particular, paragraph 4 of Article 151 of the Treaty (now article 167 TFEU) mandates the Commission to take into account the cultural component in all its actions to ensure Europe’s cultural diversity.
It was not until 2017 that the European Commission finally seemed to take this task really seriously. By choosing as the motto for its Social Summit in Gothenburg in November 2017: “Strengthening European identity through education and culture”, the Commission at least gave the impression of intending to give substance to the Maastricht provisions for a transnational and integrated cultural policy, and to bring the opportunities for artists and art institutions pursuing long-term cross-border cooperation with institutions and individuals abroad to at least the necessary level.
It remains to be seen whether the arts and culture sector is capable of holding its own in a truly European cultural debate. While certainly not entirely, but definitely partly, the increasingly nationalistic arts policies of member states are to blame for the low priority granted to transnational cooperation, not infrequently supported by local subsidy receivers.
Only strong action by the arts and culture sector itself, supported by the political class, can provide Barroso’s endeavour with any support. Artists and cultural institutions are part of civil society that will be increasingly called upon in the coming years.
This notion should lead to a mental shift among promotors of artistic and broader cultural action to leave their splendid isolation and invest in serious relations with informal and formal transnational networks of European citizens and citizens’ initiatives. After all, they are an important factor in the shaping of the democracy they are working in. Towards their audiences, they are, if they want it or not, implicit “citizenship educators”.
The initiators of the first Berlin Conference can be satisfied: their initial plea has been successful. They took up a new task: how to implement the motto of Gothenburg 2017 jointly with interested politicians, universities and social and cultural non-governmental bodies within the EU and accession countries.