Culture 2000 programme for the period 2000-2004

The Commission's amended proposal on establishing a single financing and programming instrument for cultural cooperation incorporates, entirely, in part or in spirit, those of the European Parliament's 31 amendments considered to have improved the drafting of the proposal, or to have added new elements which strengthen it, notably in the following areas : - underlining the importance of the establishment of the cultural dimension as a positive force for European and social integration; - stressing the need to safeguard Europe's small cultures and minority languages; - taking account of the extent of success of previous E.U. cultural programmes ; - pointing out the need for a complementary legal framework to reduce cultural obstacles which hinder cultural development ; - promoting the exchange of information among those working in the cultural sector, their creativity, and the dissemination of their work to the public ; - ensuring the coherence and complementarity of this programme with other Community policies which impact on the cultural sector, and with national cultural initiatives ; - defining types of cultural acion as either vertical (affecting only one cultural sector) or horizontal (affecting many cultural sectors) ; However, the Commission rejects 14 amendments, notably relating to the following areas: - references to cultural policy and the single market for culture, as these go beyond cooperation between Member States and cultural operators to create a common European cultural area, as envisaged by the EC Treaty; - reference to asserting the European cultural identity towards third countries, preferring the notion of intercultural dialogue; - specific reference under Article 4 "Implementation" to cooperation with Member States, which the Commission feels is unnecessary; - reference to consultation of the Economic and Social Committee in following up the programme, which the Treaty does not require in the cultural sector. Furthermore, the Commission rejects amendments in four other areas : 1) types of activities: attributing percentages of the budget to different cultural sectors could risk lowering the quality of eligible projects, and making the programme too inflexible and difficult to manage ; 2) the budget: the figure of 167 MECU corresponds to the budgetary arrangements agreed by the institutions; 3) comitology; 4) application procedure : this is usually published in the OJ, for the practical use of cultural operators, and for this programme has been approached by the Commission with a view to ensuring transparency and high quality when selecting projects.�