In the Beginning was the Council of Europe

"Not even epochs of dominating nationalism", namely in Germany and France, "and not even Germany's murderous National Socialism, succeeded in killing the human idea of Europe in people's heads," notes Olaf Schwencke in the "Jahrbuch für Kulturpolitik 2007", which is published annually by the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft. The prospect of Europe was being discussed before it became institutional and discovered cultural policy as one of its "official" topics. The Council of Europe was set up in 1949, years before the founding of the "European Economic Community", and 47 countries belong to it today. Two objectives were essentially named in the founding treaty, says Schwencke: the observance of human rights in Europe and the safeguarding of the common cultural heritage. In the following years, the Council dedicated specific Conventions to both: the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Liberties in 1950, and the European Cultural Convention in 1954 (Germany won the Football World Cup that year). The increasingly important subjects of education, science and culture played a certain role not only in Europe around 1950. In 1945, UNESCO was also founded as a sub-organisation of the UN to accord these topics appropriate treatment.

Having been transformed into the "European Community", the Economic Community itself did not become an active player in cultural policy until 1993. Cultural policy was laid down as an official task in Art. 128 of the Maastricht Treaty. The primarily economic initial orientation of the EU is also seen to be put into perspective by the so-called cultural compatibility clause of the draft European Constitution. It demands that culture be given special consideration in all spheres of societal activity. The (new) importance of this policy field is even increasingly being reflected in the Community budget: "culture" is, however, not only funded through the culture budget, but also and particularly through substantial

resources from the structural and social funds. Writes Schwencke: "In the State of Brandenburg, for example, € 40 million of the total of € 87 million spent on places of cultural interest in the period 2000 to 2006 came from European funding." You can find Olaf Schwencke's article from the "Jahrbuch für Kulturpolitik 2007" in German here