News

2008 - European Year of Intercultural Dialogue

7 February 2007

EFA prepares European Year of Intercultural Dialogue ‘To make use in an effective way of what festivals offer.’ This seems crucial to EFA in the run up towards 2008, European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. To exploit the immense power festivals embody in terms of communication, promotion and familiarizing citizens with the theme of intercultural dialogue is crucial to ensure visibility, effectiveness and legacy of the year and to mobilize a possibly wide range of European citizens. ‘Thanks to their immense media exposure and their connectivity to the local environment, festivals are superb instruments to promote intercultural dialogue, to increase the visibility of the year at a local level and disseminate its key messages’ (read the extensive list of best practices which EFA compiled). In October 2005, the European Commission proposed to declare 2008 the “Year of intercultural dialogue”. It aims to promote intercultural dialogue as an instrument to assist European citizens in acquiring the knowledge and attitudes, to enable them to deal with a more open and more complex environment and to raise awareness of issues regarding intercultural dialogue. Festivals are wonderful mediators and carriers of messages which go beyond their purely artistic meaning. They are in direct contact with the European citizens every day, from January through to December. Millions of Europeans with the most diverse social backgrounds visit festivals in hundreds of different cities, spanning from Bergen to Athens, from Dublin to Bucharest, from big cities to smaller cities, from capital cities to remote cities. This immense potential in terms of geographical distribution and direct communication should be exploited to a maximum extent. EFA is ready to serve as a multiplier to raise awareness, brand the year, generate media coverage, and also fill the messaging with content by engaging hundreds of festivals across Europe including EFA members and non-members in the theme of intercultural dialogue. This messaging system within the European Festival community is filled with a graspable meaning: An Arts Festivals Declaration (former Charter)rewards “festivals of intercultural glory” while at the same time stimulate and engage others to become partner in the Declaration. The Draft Declration was presented in June 2007 at the occasion of the international EFA-ISPA conference in Brussels 'Cultural Networks at Work' and finalized in a preparatory meeting with Mr Ján Figel'. You may download the full text of the Draft Declaration here. It will be signed in a festive ceremony in the framework of the official opening of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue on 8 January 2008 in Ljubljana/Slovenia. A webpage dedicated to the Declaration will be launched at that occasion. Information on the EFA submission to the Call for Ideas can be found here. To share concepts and practice of intercultural dialogue, work towards integrated strategies for intercultural dialogue, contribute to policy analysis and development and influence cultural policy-making, EFA joined the "Civil Society Platform for Intercultural Dialogue" initiated by the European Forum for the Arts and Heritage 'EFAH' and the European Culture Foundation 'ECF'. Read more about this ambitious initiative here. More information on the European Union scheme including results of the Call for Ideas, conference documents, best practices at EU level, preparatory considerations etc may be found on the European Commission Website. The [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:L:2006:412:SOM:EN:HTML] Decision establishing the Programme is available in all official EU languages.