Cultural Heritage

The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership was established by the Conference of Foreign Ministers held in Barcelona on 27-28 November 1995. It is a joint initiative by 27 Partners on both sides of the Mediterranean: the 15 Member States of the European Union and Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey and the Palestinian territories.

This ambitious project will go down in history as the first attempt to create lasting ties of solidarity across the Mediterranean.

It contains three chapters:

- the definition of a common area of peace and stability through the strengthening of political and security dialogue and the adoption of confidence-building measures;

- the building of an area of shared prosperity: the economic and financial partnership, which consists of the gradual establishment of a free trade area, accompanied by technical and financial support for the economic transition process and wider economic co-operation, aims to integrate the Mediterranean Partners into the main economic pole of attraction in the region - the European Union. The Euro-Mediterranean economic and financial dialogue is based upon a simple premise: the European Union and its Mediterranean Partners believe that accelerated growth requires the development of more open, competitive, market economies - a real economic transition;

- the bringing together of people: the social, cultural and human partnership aims to promote understanding among cultures and exchanges among civil society.

The 15 member states of the European Union are committing themselves in favour of a policy of the Mediterranean, and no longer for the Mediterranean, the main goal of which is to reduce the gap between the neighbours to the north and south of the Mediterranean.

Barcelona opened the way to a process aimed at intensifying, at all levels, relations between the European Union and the Mediterranean partners. This dynamic may bear fruit only if on the active partners concerned by the future of relations between Europe and its Mediterranean partners - public authorities, business communities, researchers, teachers and all those with responsibilities in civil society - take an active part in answering this challenge.

The partnership adopted in Barcelona introduces a totally new spirit in relations between Europe and the Mediterranean partners. An authentic partnership has been put in place, consisting of openness, prior dialogue and work in common, from the design of policies until their implementation stage. The preoccupation and interests of each of the partners are taken into account in a relationship of equality. Respect for these principles, which was the basis of the success of the Barcelona Conference, is the basis for the partnership's dynamics.

The previous collaboration policies of the European Union consisted of relatively limited economic and financial aspects. The partnership, however, now applies to a broader range of themes. In addition to the economic and financial fields, there are two new elements in Euro-Mediterranean relations: the political and security field, and social, cultural and human questions.

For the first time, the European Union and the Mediterranean partners are making a dialogue between their cultures and their civilisations one of the essential themes of the partnership.

Also for the first time, the Mediterranean partners have expressed the feeling that they are being recognised in terms of a respect for their identities, and no longer simply as markets, energy suppliers or sources of immigration. This new element has a strong symbolic significance at a time when an idea of the irreconcilable nature of cultures is growing.

Conversely, the 27 partners are asserting that the renewal of cultural dialogue is as indispensable as political and economic co-operation in order to fill in the growing gap which, over recent times, has opened up between their peoples. The fundamental recognition of the cultural dimension is intended to reverse this trend, by discouraging on either side the attitudes of rejection based, more often than not, on ignorance or prejudice. The overall aim is to make the Mediterranean a zone of links and understanding, in order to prevent it becoming a line of fracture.

Two complementary approaches have been chosen to implement the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.

On a bilateral level, the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreements that already exist or are pending negotiation between the Union and each of its partners receive most of the financial resources. Whilst adopting all the principles underlying the new Euro-Mediterranean relations, these agreements also reflect the characteristics specific to relations between the EU and each of the Mediterranean partners.

On a regional level, dialogue constitutes one of the most innovator aspects of the partnership. The 27 partners have adopted a working programme which sets out the actions and priorities which must be implemented through regional, regular and global dialogue, relating simultaneously to the political, economic and cultural fields. By this means, a permanent dialogue is being established, with the Mediterranean the central theme of the discussions. This multilateral dimension of Euro-Mediterranean relations supports and completes the bilateral actions.

The discussion forum of the 27 is most useful for:

• Addressing themes of common interest and deciding on joint projects;
• Strengthening habits of working together between the partners, both in terms of government and of private operators;
• Developing a genuinely authentic partnership dynamic, based on a relationship of equality, and no longer one of donor to beneficiary.

Working procedures have now been established. The Euro-Mediterranean committee of the Barcelona Process, consisting of the troika of the European Union and each of the Mediterranean partners, meets on average every three months to decide on actions to be undertaken under the working programme. The European Commission is preparing and managing the monitoring of all the regional partnership work. Each six months, on average, two sector-based ministerial meetings, and five meetings of experts, are held. Almost two years after the Barcelona Conference 7 Ministerial conferences and about 60 Experts’ meetings have been held in Europe and in the Mediterranean tackling issues of common interest.

The Italian Presidency which was the firs Presidency of the Council of Ministers to follow Barcelona recognised the importance of the Cultural dialogue in the Euro-Mediterranean context and wanted more specifically to address the issue of Cultural Heritage. Italy took therefor the initiative to organise as the first Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference the Conference of the Euro-Mediterranean Ministers of Culture in Bologna.

The Ministers for Culture of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, as well as the European Commissioner for Culture met in Bologna on 22 and 23 April 1996. In a joint declaration made at the Bologna ministerial conference on Euro-Mediterranean cultural heritage held in April 1996, the 27 culture Ministers reaffirmed their recognition of respective cultural traditions and called for a strengthening of the cultural dialogue. The aim of the meeting was to reinforce dialogue on joint cultural matters, as well as to launch concrete projects of a regional nature that would focus on preserving and exploiting cultural heritage.

In line with the Bologna Declaration, these concrete projects should take effect in one of the following areas:

• knowledge of the heritage through the dissemination of information, awareness raising among the public and decision-makers, and cataloguing of heritage, know-how and techniques;
• heritage policy through exchange of experience, support and reinforcement of heritage policies and institutional support;
• training for occupations involving heritage and cultural innovation;
• the exploitation of heritage through cataloguing and networking of historical sites which are used as places of beauty, as well as the promotion of tourism.

Two meetings of representatives of the Ministries of Culture from the European Union and the Partners took place in Brussels in September and December 1996, along with experts in cultural heritage and representatives from international organisations. Their aim was to identify from the concrete projects those involving the greatest possible number of Euro-Mediterranean partners.

A hundred or so proposals were studied following these meetings, the most advanced of which were analysed as regards their objectives and modalities. The identification of a first group of some 16 regional projects took place, and this was the subject of a financing proposal within the guidelines laid down by the Bologna Conference and MEDA Regulation. A joint management committee for the Commission and the Member States (MED Committee) examined on the 10th of September 1997 the financing proposal for a support programme to the Euro-Mediterranean Cultural Heritage. The MED Committee approved the programme including the grants for 16 Regional projects, the technical assistance to the projects, the information’s’ activities and experts’ meetings end evaluations. This programme could be launched by the beginning of 1998.

This process of co-operation in the field of cultural heritage is at this time the only one allowing the initiation of a collective work on a Euro-Mediterranean scale on a major theme of common interest.

Judith Neisse