News

EFA participated in round table at European Parliament

29 June 2010

Kathrin Deventer, Secretary General of the European Festivals Association (EFA), and Eva Nunes, EFA European Projects Manager, represented EFA at a round table on “The Cultural Dimension of Europe’s External Relations/Foreign Policy” (23 June 2010, European Parliament, Brussels). Organised by the “A Soul for Europe” office at the European House for Culture, the round table discussed the role of culture in external affairs. The successful event saw the participation of a series of Members of the European Parliament, embassies, representatives of national delegations, civil society etc: some 75 people attended the 2 hour debate. Kicked off by Gijs de Vries, Member of the Board of the Dutch Court of Audit, a debate involving key stakeholders and moderated by Simon Mundy, permanent fellow of the Felix Meritis Foundation (Amsterdam), gave some food for further thinking and action. In particular the call to Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, to include the cultural dimension in her new portfolio and in the European External Action Service was clearly formulated in different contributions. “I think that the round table gave a clear direction: there is a need for further reflection – inter-institutional as well as in form of public debate – to develop further the different dimensions (culture and conflict prevention, culture in defence, culture in diplomacy....) in terms of content and strategy, for example in forms of ateliers, debates, hearings etc,” explained Kathrin Deventer. Related links and documents: • Programme and background note round table • European External Action Service (EEAS) analysis (http://eeas.europa.eu) • Presidency Conclusions (19/20 June 2008) • "New Paradigms, New Models – Culture in the EU External Relations” (May 2008), Ljubljana: • Conference conclusions: Slovenian Presidency DeclarationSpeech Gijs de Vries (Ljubljana, 2008) • Council conclusions 2008European Agenda for CultureCommission Communication (March 2008): “Western Balkans: Enhancing the European perspective”Culture policy documents