Instruments of cultural cooperation

First of all a brief review is adumbrated of  the arsenal of government-dependent cultural cooperation.

Traditionally, the main pillars of cooperation are the bilateral cultural agreements between governments. These are high-level long-term instruments that are fairly uniform and general. Cultural cooperation agreements are made between governments; after joint signature they are approved by both governments and published in the gazettes. They serve as a symbol and pledge of good-will, a diplomatic gesture, and open the way to lower-level bilateral documents of a more practical nature. Sometimes they are combined agreements, covering educational, sports and other cooperation. This is explained by historical reasons and although may have technical consequences and difficulties, yet has no major effect on the cultural content.

There were a few cultural agreements between the two world wars but they really thrived in the second half of the past century. When the potential partners' number exploded in several waves - first, with the independence of the former colonies, and most recently, also more relevant to our subject, with the dissolution of several federations in the Eastern half of Europe - one might have wondered if international diplomacy was going to maintain bilateral agreements, this classical instrument, as its basic constitutent. Apparently yes, old and new nations were busy multiplying the lines between the angles of the by now enormous graph of independent countries. Still, one of the purposes of this inquiry has been to find out about the future role of bilateral cultural agreements. 

There are cases where the high level agreements have a more practical significance than the diplomatic framework for day-to-day affairs. The most important are the agreements on the establishment and status of official cultural institutions, where again attempts are typically made at complementarity. The ‘classical' forms of cultural institutions abroad have diplomatic status and therefore in all aspects are treated as such. Where this is not the case, the function of the cultural agreement is to establish benefits and indemnities which are on a par with diplomatic status. Experience shows, that these efforts often fail when confronted with higher levels of interest, especially the regulations on employment, taxation and the social security of foreign citizens. Some countries are willing to circumvent their own regulations in favour of the staff or property of foreign cultural institutions on their territory, others (the majority) offer no exception, so that mutual favours are not granted for all citizens and services by the other party. Agreements on cultural institutions on one another's territories are usually made between governments; often they are only part of the general cultural agreement.

As was mentioned, the real content of the government level cultural co-operation agreements finds realisation in lower-level documents, called working programmes (exchange programmes, action plans, protocols etc.)  that are usually elaborated, negotiated, approved and implemented by the culture ministries. Working programmes derive their legitimacy from the cultural agreements. The most characteristic constituents of these day-to-day (or rather year-to-year) tools of government-dependent cultural cooperation are the quotas of exchange. These figures express where the two parties commit themselves to the reception of the citizens of the other country up to a determined number of days. The obligationcommitments are broken down by type: areas of culture, specific institutions or events. Typically, these numbers match, five against five, ten against ten.

Classes of quotas for receiving visitors are many. They range from several-day stays for artists, exhibition curators, researchers, conference delegates, individually or in groups (e.g. choruses), to residences lasting a couple of years. The latter include study grants: this is an overlapping area with the bilateral educational agreements (e.g. students in artistic higher or postgraduate education). 

Besides quotas, work-programmes contain obligations to receive and financially and otherwise contribute to ad hoc or recurrent projects. Frequently the exact nature of these commitments is not specified, the text limits itself to the fact of supporting or enhancing participation in, realisation of etc. a number of listed projects.

Next to the above listed bilateral instruments of the classical arsenal, many multilateral agreements follow the same pattern. This is especially true of regional agreements, like Ars Baltica, the Visegrad Four or the Mediterranean Forum.

Ministers and ministries enter into a number of ad hoc, yet official instances of bi- and multilateral cultural cooperation. A frequent source of such activities is official visits by senior administrators, but many are instigated by diplomats and cultural institutes in the partner country. There are indications of a tendency towards an increase of such instances. In other words, even at the bilateral level, state-dependent cooperation is governed by individual, ad hoc decisions. Ministerial staff try to insert these into the prevailing working programmes, especially if these programmes have earmarked budgets, or, more typically, quotas of exchange. It would however require a more fundamental analysis to discern whether a process of continuous regression also occurs, whereby the extra-agreement accords subsequently integrate into established bilateral channels of cooperation.

Historical outline

Before we get to the examination how the conventional instruments of government-dependent cultural cooperation function in the accession countries today, a brief historical outline on the region seems to be appropriate. For a number of practical and theoretical reasons, greater focus will be on the ten post-socialist states.

12-13 years have passed since the collapse of the monolithic systems of state socialism. If one thinks of Germany or Austria in the mid-fifties: these countries, their political, economic or social systems (or their cultural cooperation) could be described from many aspects, but certainly the label of ‘ex-fascist / nazi / totalitarian' appeared to be less and less relevant, even entirely absurd by 1957-1958. Similarly, in 2003 the use of the terms to describe the countries of east-central Europe as ex- or post-communist, ex-totalitarian etc., often leads to mistaken conclusions, increasingly so with the important transformation processes that these countries are undergoing year after year.

Yet, it is still an obvious and not superfluous starting point to summarise the characteristic features of the international cultural cooperation that took place in these countries thirty or forty years ago. We must go back to the cold war period, because everything that happened afterwards, can be regarded as a lengthy and gradual dissolution of the original conditions, of an ‘ideal model'. (From this point of view the parallel with the archetypes of fascist totalitarian systems is unfair, since the total defeat of Hitlerism prevented nazism from undergoing the same lengthy and gradual process of "normalisation"; there were no "reform-nazis" like the "reform-communists" before and during the Gorbachov era. Spain and Portugal may offer some analogies for step-by-step transition, but the conditions are too different to provide meaningful clues.) Every aspect of international relations was at the service of the global cold war, the rivalry between the two dominant world systems. That meant not only strict control over all kinds of contacts and cooperation, but also clear guiding principles. Cultural cooperation served ‘higher' objectives, the cause of world level class struggle. This meant the following:

• Cooperation had important ultimate goals. In the early period the main objective was to demonstrate the superiority of socialism over capitalism. Later, when peaceful coexistence was declared, and even later when the communist world was forced into the Helsinki process of rapprochement, the goal was the controlled maintenance of the balance of powers.

• Since cultural cooperation was subordinated to an overall political strategy, it was planned very consciously and formed part of a broader system, an overall logical structure. This applied to the planning of the volume of exchanges by countries, sectors etc.

Conflicting goals during and after transition

The key concepts used to be control, plan, conscious goals. The key concepts of our age are contacts, promotion of cultural values, identity. The two sets of goals are not easily compatible.

The actual forms, instruments and practice of government-dependent cultural cooperation reflect the inherent contradiction between the two approaches.

Besides the basic difference in the overall political system, the replacement of totalitarian state socialism by a democratic society, the Eastern part of the continent followed the global processes of désétatisation, too. The central state administration first lost its monopoly, then its hegemony, and even later its dominance in favour of the increasing influence of the other sectors: local governments (particularly on the municipal level), the civil sector (especially non-profit organisations), and last but not least the business sector. These developments took place within the countries. In addition, transborder cooperation became more deconcentrated owing to the ever-increasing and improving opportunities for communication. This complex set of changes, which are similar to each other in that they are all part of de-constructing the ‘modern' world order, cannot be looked upon as a finite phase like the transition from communism to democracy, but rather as an enduring historic process. It is difficult to establish whether in 2003 we are before, after, or just on the zenith of the multifaceted de-construction.

Differences in perception and interpretation

Examined in the light of the double set of fundamental transformations, one specific to the region, the other global, government-dependent cultural cooperation can be treated from extreme standpoints.

Seen from the angle of the established traditions (and especially ‘from above'), the scene looks unaffected and stable. With the number of new states, the number of cooperation agreements keep growing. These instruments reveal such self-sustaining power, that they very often exert their functions in their absence as well: although governments and ministers are unable to keep pace with their multiplying duties and miss deadlines when the old agreements - or the operative working plans - expire, very often the routine of prolonging documents is maintained. Prolongation may happen literally, when the old agreements and plans are extended without much ado, regardless of the fact they carry signatures of long forgotten personalities and regimes. In other cases they are not even formally extended, yet adhered to by tacit accord, before the two administrations and ministers or state secretaries find time for preparing and signing the new version.

The phenomenon described above may be interpreted as a sign of organic perpetuation, proven structures, adaptable to new circumstances. Indeed, the exchange quotas lend themselves as very convenient, speedy, unbureaucratic tools in the service of transborder actions: conditions have been negotiated years, sometimes decades ago, there is no need for time consuming paper-work, argumentation, individual assessment and decision, at its simplest only the name of the artist (or librarian, cultural manager etc.) needs to be replaced from the previous year's. Quotas in fact function like vouchers. In many cases the administration has kept the right of selecting the recipients (the cultural institutions abroad being included in this concept of administration), and they live with their right with an easy-going non-chalance: no tenders, no public calls, simplified reporting and accountability.

Going to the other extreme of the scale, independent (and independent-minded at that) cultural operators frown upon the government-dependent cultural cooperation as self-perpetuating fossils of an outdated paradigm, hot-beds of clientism and refuges of impotent academic culture. They usually demonstratively take little note of these channels, and if they do, they remark the absence of consensual elaboration in their contents.

The distance between the extremes in perception is striking. During the preparation of this paper we turned to a few cultural operators in the region with the simple question: "If we take forms of international cultural cooperation as 100, how do you feel, in which percentage is your government involved?" State administrators typically estimated 60% (so far no real surprise), yet those in the ‘independent' field gave figures as low as 5-8%! Those working at local government level judged the governmental influence between these two poles.

Even bigger was the deviation between the responses to the next question, more pertinent to the present study: (within state-dependent cooperation) "which percentage is covered by bilateral cultural agreements?" Most outsiders, i.e. not members of the ministry staff, simply abstained, admitting that they had little idea. Ministry administrators also emphasised that they were guessing only, which ranged between 20 and 70%.

This improvised mini-survey has nothing of the validity and reliability required from such polls, yet a real survey would produce almost as divergent a perception. For some, government-dependent cultural cooperation appears to keep its dominant position on the international cultural arena, for others, it has dwindled to an insignificant marginal role; and both groups of people are active and important actors in international cultural cooperation. The most significant message appears to be that the borders of traditional bilateral cooperation are blurred; although in the case of individual actions it may be clear whether it is recorded as an item in the bilateral cooperation plan or not, this has technical significance only. Often even those taking part are not aware of this circumstance: when you pay with a euro coin, you are rarely aware where it was minted.  

The same people were asked about their prognosis for the next few years. In a somewhat unexpected way, the responses were convergent: civil servants projected some (relative) decline of government involvement, while the independents expressed their hope for some growth of the same! Which means that the very low percentage in their perception of the governmental share in cultural cooperation is not an ironic depreciation of the significance of its role, but rather a protesting signal that experimental or alternative forms of art feel left out of these channels. Being familiar with the acttivities of the cultural cooperation institutions of most EU members, we suspect that although the same divide obviously exists there too it is by no means as wide as in the accession countries.

The functions of cultural cooperation

The glance back to the cold war period recalled a time when cultural cooperation, like every kind of international interaction, was laden with strategic importance. Consequently the functions of cultural cooperation were easier to discern than today, from the formal acts of diplomatic agreements between states (governments) to the actual exchanges operated by ministries and cultural institutes. Also, such activity had a higher position in the hierarchy of state actions. The divided world of yesteryear lent itself to easier a derivation of specific goals, forms, geographical directions and participants from the overall objectives than today.

Instead of the ‘ideal case' of the early cold war era, nowadays accession countries follow a wide array of goals in their cultural cooperation (whether in general, or, more specifically, as set forth for their cultural institutions abroad). Out of the scope of objectives, the following stand out, in the approximate order of importance, with of course variations country by country.

a)                   Each of the 13 countries gives the EU accession very high priority.

b)                   Each of them dutifully mentions the goal of promoting their national culture abroad.

c)                   For the majority, the adherence to a smaller group of countries - usually belonging to a sub-region - is an important objective.

d)                   For the majority, their compatriots abroad are an important target.

e)                   Training and information is usually left at the end of the list.

The high level of concordance between the list of priorities in the 13 countries also confirms that they are natural, organic objectives that stem from shared political realities. Each of the five sets of goals, however, deserves some additional remarks.

Ad a), EU accession

The obvious driving force of the government-dependent cultural cooperation in the 10+3 accession countries has been to serve the cause of accession. The aims were clear, basically to help convince both the political class, and the general (voting) public about the desirability of accepting the respective country among the European community of nations. Culture, and especially the arts, are eminently suitable to achieve this goal. It has therefore been understandable that the main thrust from each of the 13 countries was aimed towards the actual members of the EU in the past 5-10 years. Although the major decisions - at least for the 10 imminent states - have been taken, this priority will inevitably stay on for the next few years.

European integration (and, to a lesser extent, Atlantic integration) being at the top of the agenda in the entire region, it was taken for granted that cultural cooperation should be pivot on  it. Luckily, this was also the most attractive option to both administrators and cultural operators: increased contacts, especially travel opportunities to the member states of the EU had by itself an appeal that needed little analysis of investment and return.

Ad b), national promotion

Traditionally this has first place in the list of priorities. Being almost uniformly relegated to the second position, does not indicate a lessening importance. This is because the top priority of ‘serving EU accession' has very little effect on the contents; the most obvious message to the EU is the display of the cultural values of the nation, i.e. promotion proper of national culture.

The fact that in the majority of cases cultural cooperation is under the charge of the foreign ministry raises the following question, for which the actual survey could provide no full answer, guesses only. The question is, whether in foreign-policy geared cases the guiding principles are more strict, linked more closely to the general foreign policy strategy of the country, and to more prosaic domains of the same strategy, like commerce and tourism? And if this is so, does this have any implications for  the choice of the actual cultural content?

Inversely, the same logic tends to suppose that in the smaller number of countries where cultural cooperation is dominated by the culture ministry, more abstract cultural values might prevail...

Whichever is the answer, neither of the approaches should be regarded as being better. For cultural operators, a less pre-determined set of principles appears to be more attractive. On the other hand, however, a clear concept about the target of the message, and the higher political importance attached to it, can lend increased efficacy to the interaction.

Although the term applied here, and also in the official documents is ‘cooperation', in reality, what almost exclusively happens and what dominates the conceptual thinking is closer to a mutual opening of one another's cultural market, an acknowledgment of the intentions of the other party. Little actual co-operation takes place, the objectives are dominated by the efforts to ‘sell', and much less is spent on ‘co-produce', ‘learn' and even less on ‘help'.

From the point of view of the accession countries there is clear justification for this attitude . Probably the least satisfactory explantion is to attribute it to the inherited habit of communist propaganda. Much more is due to the marginal status of these countries, which have now been presented with a chance to establish their adherence to the stable centre, and which poses tests of maturity for them. The quest for new identity is a similarly strong drive, which makes these countries eager to prove to the West what was hidden by the previous historical period of separation.

Ad c), subregional coherence

Most of these adhesions are very recent, notwithstanding their historical or geographical roots. The largest group of the 13 used to belong to the ‘socialist camp' and to Comecon for decades. From the actual cooperation tradition of the camp one can recall one segment only, which is entirely neglected nowadays: the regular cooperation of administrators, researchers, managers etc., i.e. of the ‘cadres'. At the prehistoric outset these working sessions used to have some military character, the aim being to coordinate the weapons and tactics in the struggle against imperialism on every front: including those of book editors, opera directors, culture statisticians, museum managers etc. Subsequently these became harmless official outings that often managed to create real, meaningful cooperation. This common experience might work as cohesion cement for cultural cooperation but it hardly does so. All compasses are fixed towards the west.

The search for smaller families of nations, that is taking place in the region is an important phenomenon on the increase but rarely can one detect the strength of a sweeping urge. (As opposed, for example, to the strong motivation to co-operate with the West, as was already mentioned earlier.) Instead of emotions, rational principles appear to be the main force behind the increasing activity in the smaller circles reviewed at the end of this paper. The apparent exception is the Baltic - Nordic cooperation, the force of which seems to exceed - particularly around the mid-nineties - that of the gravitation to the EU. (See Annex.)

Ad d), fellow nationals abroad

Fellow nationals are basically mentioned as the targets of international cultural cooperation, in two (maybe three) connotations. The main dividing line is between those who (or whose ancestors) moved out of the country (the diaspora) and those who (or whose ancestors) have lived at their actual habitat for ages (ethnic minorities). The diaspora can also be differentiated, from the point of view of cultural needs, between emigrants of centuries or decades ago, and more recent, continuously reproducing expatriates.

The significance of each of these groups is great in most of the 13 countries. It seems, however, that for most of them the issue has a greater magnitude than for most of the 15 old members. Although before 1989 little or no attention was paid to these connections, since then almost all the accession countries have built up the special government unit in charge of cultivating contacts with the various groups of fellow nationals abroad.

For some countries the bulk of the diaspora is in Northern America, one notable case is Poland, where both abroad and in the country there are particularly well established traditions of maintaining cultural relations between fellow nationals. In Malta there were no political obstacles and yet institutional cooperation with the diaspora dates back to 1986 only. Since 1996 a special Roots Programme is being run to foster Maltese culture among their fellow nationals, the number of which is supposed to double that of the actual population.

With regard to recent expatriates, Turkey is by far the best known and most important case, because of the number of people and the slow or no assimilation into the culture of the host country. The colonies of citizens of other accession countries remain smaller than the Turks, although by now several EU members have received over 100 000 Polish citizens each. The case for cultural links with the expat communities is not commonly considered as belonging to international cultural cooperation. First, the target group is the citizens of the country; second, the host countries are in charge of these people, also from point of view of cultural provision, nearly as much as the original lands. However, total neglect of the issue from the point of view of cultural cooperation would be a mistake.

The relationship with members of the same cultural community who were born and live as minority citizens in neighbouring countries is considered to be a predominantly internal affair of the countries concerned. Romania and Hungary have particularly sizable communities sharing the same language and culture and living beyond the border (especially in the Republic of Moldova and the Ukraine in the first case, Romania and Slovakia in the latter).

Ad e) training and information

Training, technical cooperation, joint research, exchange of information are in fact implicit objectives in most cases, not making it to the top of the priority lists set for cultural cooperation. This may be due to the urge to boast, which seems to suppress the urge to learn. Or to display this as an explicit priority objective. In actual practice, the work programmes have always dedicated an important portion to such functions. In the fields of heritage, they have often been more important than the presentation of past values (i.e. study visits of museologists versus travelling exhibits). It was mentioned above, while speaking about the Comecon legacy, about certain established traditions in this regard. One reason for the relative dwindling of the ‘learning' function in cultural cooperation is the dominance of the East-West axis: classical agreements are built on the principle of complementarity and, even if there was a will, western partners have not been able to recruit similar numbers of information seekers to travel to the East.

In the early phase of transition, in the first half of the 1990s, therefore, there was a great number of ad hoc bilateral, interministerial (or lower level) agreements, whereby western know-how was communicated to Eastern colleagues. France, Netherlands and United Kingdom excelled in these endeavours; the Nordic countries did the same, concentrating on the Baltic belt.

Priorities for cultural cooperation after enlargement

We have not come across any case where an accession country would indicate an intention to change priorities after actual accession. Consequently, cultural cooperation with the (actual) EU members looks like remaining a top priority after 2004-2007. This, however, raises some questions. Is it taken for granted, that after enlargement, the main strand of cultural cooperation should continue to be East-West? It is the case at the moment, with the ideology of presenting ourselves to the old members through our culture (i.e. the same as in the past decade).

If one tries to find out the priorities on a community level and adapt national objectives (also but not exclusively) from these, one might arrive at a wider set of goals. Certainly, the presentation of the newcomers to the old members will remain an important goal for a long while, in the service of strengthened cohesion, in search of pertinent common values. Yet this one-dimension objective need not dominate the cooperation as strongly as today.

Instead, it appears to be in the interest of the community that the accession countries devote  more attention to the East-East cooperation, in order that cooperation inside the EU should go towards all points of the compass. That will probably call for the maintenance and strengthening of the existing subregional cooperation (which is already a leading priority in many cases). Also a more even distribution of contacts among all 25 members (in 2004) will probably be encouraged. 

It is also likely that new members will need to take a greater share of the collaboration with the areas neighbouring the Union. This designates responsibilities and tasks to those countries that have the best traditions, geographical positions and general dispositions to promote cultural coexistence with the ex-soviet third countries, with South-eastern Europe and with the Mediterranean region respectively.

Similarly, the accession countries will probably have to become conscious of their shared responsibility for  cultural cooperation with more distant third countries in all the other continents, with possibly special attention to the two most delicate partners, the United States on the one hand, and the Arab countries on the other.

Although the number of internal (inter-EU) immigrants certainly, and that of the minorities abroad will probably decrease with time, integration processes will inflate the number and the weight of the (inter-EU) expatriate populations. This might become an important factor in cultural cooperation.

The problems of cultural minorities have not been high on the EU agenda. It is largely due to the enlargement process that the matter has gathered momentum lately and promises to get larger prominence in the Convention. In some of the accession countries the case of ethnic minorities is a major political issue, and as members, they will expect the EU to pay more attention to it, which may find its way also into defining the objectives of transnational cultural cooperation.

In the accession countries it is almost exclusively the century-old legacies which are meant by cultural minorities. The recent immigrants, typically from other continents (the only sizable communities are Chinese and Vietnamese) have not yet posed a cultural challenge.

The function discussed under b) above, the promotion of national image is expected to remain an important one. It is legitimate, among members also, to use culture as a tool for enhancing national values, whether for its own sake (for the feeling of self-respect) or having indirect objectives like attracting visitors, boosting the sales of products of the country etc.

Yet, the mutual or parallel self-promotion, i.e.a competition of cultural values does not fully deserve the name of cooperation, as it was already remarked above. It seems not only desirable but likely, that less selfish, more altruistic objectives will climb up the lists of priorities set before cultural cooperation by the (ex or still) accession countries in the coming years. Such as: the strengthening of intercultural competence, the increase in creative interaction, the joint quest for common spiritual values: past, present and future etc. The hegemonic goal of presenting oneself will probably leave some more room for the declaration of the will to contribute to the creation and preservation of shared European values, or just to promote culture in Europe.

Such a change requires more of the national policy makers and administrators than they are used to. Using culture for the concrete purpose of raising the national image is an easier task than the vague idealistic objective of searching for the European added value: we have been witnessing this in the case of the formulation of Culture 2000 goals.

Significant increase and improvement is inevitable in the field of training, technical cooperation, joint research etc. inside cultural cooperation. A healthier balance is to be expected between showing and learning, also on the level of explicit national priorities for cultural cooperation.

EU assistance

There is very little evidence about specific expectations in the 13 countries from the European Union with regard to cultural cooperation. Indeed, familiarity with the exact competences or intentions of the Commission in this respect is very limited in the accession countries.

Culture 2000 (just like the preceding programmes, also accepting partners from accession lands) has in fact acted in a different segment, even if the goals and actors may have overlapped a good deal. If one draws a net of the cooperation links created  by the winners of tenders; and another one formed by the many cooperation acts on the basis of bilateral agreements, very few of the lines will coincide. Culture 2000 contributed to government-dependent cultural cooperation system in Europe by actually creating a new ‘system'. One basic difference comes by definition: the first system is dominated by bilateral relations, while Culture 2000 favours intercourse with more actors. This could only be different if the cultural programmes of the EU were willing to dedicate an action to enhancing instances  of cooperation that have been initiated by national authorities. 

.

This is the text of the study with which the Budapest Observatory contributed in the spring of 2003 to the Study on Cultural Cooperation in Europe for the European Commission. The study was the work of a large number of experts, co-ordinated by Interarts, Barcelona with the involvement of EFAH, Brussels. Thanks to Jerry Booth for the revision of the text.

The term of désétatisation, in spite of being absent from the English vocabulary, appears to express the best the complex phenomena of decentralisation, devolution, deconstruction, privatisation, empowerment etc.

The phenomenon is distantly analogous to the embarrassing perception of corruption and nepotism by a number of social researchers, who claim that in spite of their moral harms, these habits contribute to the smooth functioning of certain societies.

The three Baltic republics formed part of Comecon even less of their own will than the rest, and have profited precious little from the cooperation described here, except if they were put into the Soviet delegation. These countries had extremely limited access to international cultural cooperation before independence.

Turkish citizens living abroad (thousand):

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ANNEX

REGIONAL (SUBREGIONAL) GROUPINGS WITH ACCESSION COUNTRY PARTICIPATION

Ars Baltica

The regional cultural cooperation of the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea: Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Finland, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden. Since 1993, the Secretariat is located in Estonia and it will stay there until 2003. the organisation's aim is to implement common cultural projects of European significance, strengthening common cooperation, rather than bilateral ones.

From all regional the cooperation schemes reviewed here, Ars Baltica has had the most intensive cultural collaboration programme.

Nordic Baltic 8

This is the joint cooperation forum of the five Nordic and three Baltic states (also called Nordic-Baltic 5+3).

5+3 meetings started in 1992 at Prime Ministerial level; Prime Ministers now meet annually to discuss common foreign policy and regional issues. Ministers of foreign affairs and of defence also have frequent consultations. Besides foreign politics and security, practical cooperation between the Nordic and Baltic countries involves culture, education, environmental protection, infrastructure, social security, people-to-people contacts, etc. There is little information, however, about specific cultural cooperation projects in the frames of Nordic Baltic 8.

The Visegrad Group

Promoting multilateral co-operation in the region, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland set up the Visegrad Triangle in 1990, renamed Visegrad Group following the break-up of Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia joining individually.

The beginning was no easy matter. Without Western encouragement, the Visegrad idea would have very likely remained unfulfilled. The natural ties resulting from centuries' long history proved too weak an adhesive, when conviction was lacking about the need for a common European policy. But rivalry and controversy (e.g. between the Czech Republic and Hungary over the so-called Beneš decrees, or between Slovakia and Hungary over the Hungarian minority) did not yet spell the death of Visegrad co-operation. The co-operation was revived starting in 1998, as problems emerged in accession negotiations. This led to the establishment in June 2000 of the International Visegrad Fund, the first institution involving international legal commitments among these countries; at the moment 40% goes to cultural projects that are cooperative by definition.

The V4 do not have projects of their own, although in the future such development may take place. The financial support goes to projects, submitted upon the periodic calls of the Visegrad Fund. (More detailed presentation to be found as an annex at the end of this paper.)

The Mediterranean Forum

In 1992 the group of countries which are named as the ‘Core Group Countries' namely, Algeria, Morocco, France, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Portugal, Turkey, Greece and Malta established the platform which is called the Mediterranean Forum.

The Cultural and Social Working Group is presently chaired by Turkey. The Group covers dialogue between different cultures, co-operation in the fields of education, preservation of the Mediterranean cultural heritage and exchange of information.

The main goal of the Mediterranean Forum is constantly to analyse the political, economical and socio-cultural situation of the Mediterranean region in order to consider long and short term implications for Western, in particular European, politics towards the region. The geographic area considered by the Mediterranean Forum does not cover only the Mediterranean countries but takes into consideration extra European countries and their sub-regional areas such as North Africa, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and the sub-regional areas such as the African Horn, the Black Sea area and the Indo-Pakistan region.

Thus the Mediterranean Forum is not a multilateral cultural cooperation forum, but a strictly regional institution of inter-governmental dialogue. Seminars and workshops are held regularly on topics of common interest, including cultural affairs. The Forum also does not have any funds, therefore all activities are catered for by the state or states wishing to engage in an activity such as a seminar or meeting.

Eleven member-states of the Mediterranean Forum participate in the programme of "Cooperation for the preservation, conservation, restoration and enhancement of classical, Hellenistic and Roman monuments of the member-states of Mediterranean Forum": Algeria, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey.

Türksoy12

Turkish Culture and Arts Common Administration. In 1992 Culture Ministers of Turkish Speaking Countries (the Culture Ministers of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan) decided to establish TÜRKSOY to reveal, explore, protect and develop the socio-cultural similarity among the peoples speaking the Turkic language.

Central European Initiative

Founded by Austria, Italy, Hungary and Yugoslavia in 1989, as Quadrilateral Co-operation, its membership increased to 10 by 1994, to 16 by 1996 and to 17 in 2000 with the accession of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (now Serbia and Montenegro).

The CEI has established an integrated framework of dialogue, co-ordination and co-operation among and between its member countries in the political, economic, cultural and parliamentary fields, creating, thereby, an atmosphere of mutual understanding in which national projects and transnational programmes are being discussed, planned, studied and implemented. However, little information is available about concrete cultural cooperation projects.

The Quadrilaterale Initiative

The initiative for trilateral cooperation between Slovenia, Hungary and Italy was launched by Slovenia in 1996. With the admission of the Republic of Croatia in September 2000, the initiative became the Quadrilaterale (not to be confused with the Central European Initiative that also used to bear this name at the very beginning). It is a form of concrete cooperation of countries situated in the same geopolitical area, sharing the same interests and participating in joint projects.

In 2003, the Quadrilaterale is being chaired by Slovenia. The main political aspect of cooperation remains active support for the candidates in their integration into the EU and NATO. Among the cross-border cooperation aims culture is mentioned, alongside the fight against organised crime and illegal migration, military and defence activities, the construction of the Pan European Corridor V, cooperation between the North Adriatic ports, protection of the sea and coastal regions, labour market and employment, culture and development of the information society.

Adriatic-Ionian Initiative

The Adriatic-Ionian Initiative (AII) officially came into being in Ancona in May 2000. Its members are: Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia. The Initiative received support from the EU and representatives of the European Commission participate in all its major meetings.

The purpose of the Initiative is cooperation between members situated along the Adriatic and Ionian Seas in the development and security of the entire region. Considering the specific nature of the sea and the coastal area, the countries cooperate in a number of fields covered within six round tables representing the framework of aII the AII activities. The round tables include: the fight against organised crime; environmental protection and sustainable development; the economy, tourism and SME cooperation; transport and maritime cooperation; culture; education and inter-university cooperation.

Cooperation in the Balkans

In spite of significant non-governmenatal initiatives, e.g. The European Cultural Foundation, Open Society Institute, KulturKontakt Austria, EricArts, government-dependent transnational cooperation has not reached the same level of institutionalisation as in other sub-regions. In spite of repeated efforts, the Stability Pact for South-East Europe has no mandate and contingency for culture.

"It is characteristic that multilateral initiatives in South-Eastern Europe were, right up until the 1970's,channeled first and foremost at issues concerning border security, territorial integrity and defence (Balkan Conference, Balkan Entente, Balkan alliance), while issues of broader economic and cultural cooperation were present-but rather as ones of lesser importance, in the background. The minority issue has been, as they are proclaimed, ‘bridges of cooperation'. Association in the Balkans, when it was not comprehensive, was primarily conceived or accepted in Balkan political circles as ‘association against' some other Balkan country, are not ‘association in favour of' the realization of the positive idea of cooperation and integration". (Fragment taken from the book 'Regional Initiatives in South-Eastern Europe' by Dusko Lopandic.)

One initiative of multi-lateral cultural co-operation with the ministries of Balkan states is called Balkan cultural co-operation. It was originally a Greek proposal (1996) to establish a non-governmental organisation called the Balkan Cultural Network, functioning with the support and participation of arts institutions in all Balkan countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Turkey and Yugoslavia (now Serbia and Montenegro).

Francophonie

The Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, OIF held its first assembly in 1986 in Paris. Now it has over fifty members, including Bulgaria and Romania. Five more accession countries are observers in the organisation: the Czech republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia.

In the field of culture the main guiding principle of the activity of the organisation is the struggle for the preservation of cultural diversity. Conferences are held on the issue, grants are given to the audio-visual sector, to publishers of periodicals and radio stations. Support is given to the cooperation of artists in the various language areas.