The European Cultural Policy Research

Over the past60years, the EU, as a unique economic and political partnershipbetween27European countries, has made itself to be an important actor on the worldstage. Even before Europe was united in an economic level or was conceived at thelevel of economic interests and trade, it was culture that united all the countries ofEurope. Based on a a series of ‘Treaties’, the EU has to act in accordance with thesubsidiarity principle, which means that the Community only takes action “if and inso far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by theMember States”. So the European governance model for culture encompasses fourlevels: European, national, regional and local. This paper focuses on the governanceand policy at EU level.The cultural governance of EU is different from the sovereign states. Theculture issue in EU is intergovernmental in nature. The Commission and the EuropeanCouncil are generally regarded as the main agenda-setters at the European level,representing the interests of the Community and the Member States respectively.Under the EC Treaty, the Commission is the guardian of the treaties and the onlyinstitution with the power to make legislative proposals, while the European Councilhas a much more important role to play in policy areas of culture. But otherinstitutions can be seen to have important agenda-setting powers as well. BothCouncil and EP may formally request that the Commission takes action on certainissues. The Member States play a much bigger role in the ’policy coordination’ mode,more commonly referred to as the ’Open Method of Coordination’(OMC).From1960s to1970s, although the EU had no legal basis for direct involvementin cultural affairs, both the European Parliament and Commission had alreadyestablished several specialized committees related to culture. This situation changedwith the1992Maastricht Treaty. Among its innovations, the Treaty created the EUand by placing culture de jure as a treaty matter, it also legitimized the EU’s earliercultural activities and interests. Despite most Member States’ initial hesitance toundertake any action in the field, culture has over time grown beyond the status ofmarginal policy area. In this process, the EU has adopted the slogan "unity indiversity" as its central policy motif. In practice, EU shall contribute to the floweringof the cultures of the Member States while respecting their national and regionaldiversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore. For EU, the cultural policy can meet two objectives, one is cultivating Europe’scultural identity, and the other is promoting the development of cultural industries. Allpolitical systems seek legitimacy in the cultural field, and EU is no exception. In morerecent times, the contribution of cultural actions to the emergence of Europeancitizenship has emerged as a more dominant theme. At the same time, EU tries tomake a friendly environment for the healthy development of cultural industries by law,cultural programmes, freely social environment and a variety of cultural activities, soas to promote the free movement of cultural products and cultural professionals.As to the process and results of EU actions in cultural areas, this paper givestwo examples. First, in the audiovisual sector, the TWF Directive and MEDIAprogramme, in place since1989and1991respectively, promotes the competitivenessof the European audiovisual industry. It is a miniature of overall cultural policy.Second, the majority of CCI companies are SMEs, The Commission aims to promotesuccessful entrepreneurship and improve the business environment for SMEs, toallow them to realise their full potential in today’s global economy. Here, access tofinance as a main point to show what the EU do in this area.Europe’s cultural richness and diversity is closely linked to its role andinfluence in the world. The EU is not just an economic process or a trading power, itis already widely and accurately perceived as an unprecedented and successful socialand cultural project. Culture is an indispensable feature to achieve the EU’s strategicobjectives of prosperity, solidarity and security, while ensuring a stronger presence onthe international scene. At the same time, the EU has the obligation to take culturalaspects into account in all its policies in order to respect and promote the diversity ofits cultures. This is also true in the case of the EU relations with third countries andregions: the EU enlargement partners, the European Neighbourhood Policy countries,countries with which the EU has successfully concluded trade agreements,industrialised, emerging and developing countries. In this part, the author give twoexamples, one is the dispute between US and Europe over audio-visual servicesduring the Uruguay Round negotiations, the other is EU’s cooperation with the thirdcountries on cultural issues, Euromed Heritage.Although culture is not the core area of European integration, it is always anunderlying element of this process. The cultural policy of EU level is an inevitableoutcome of European integration on one hand; on the other hand, it is a necessary choice of further integration. In this part, the author tries to analyze why do EU andmember states make these choices by three theory, that is cultural identity, nationalinterest and soft power.Althrough the real EU-China cultural relations started as early as in2003with aDeclaration on cultural cooperation between the European Commission and theChinese Ministry of Culture, the bilateral cultural exchange has a long history.Theprinciples of the2005UNESCO Convention on the protection and promotion of thediversity of cultural expressions, ratified by both parties, lay the common ground forcooperation. Other cooperations are in the forms of EU Culture Programme,EU-China Year of Intercultural Dialogue, and EU-China Trade Project II etc. Anumber of activities have been supported thus far facilitating exchanges of goodpractices and peer-learning between EU and Chinese policy makers in the form ofworkshops, study visits, and roundtable discussions. Based on the former analysis, theauthor finally give some advises on what can we learn from EU’s experiences andhow to develop the friendly environment for cultral development in china.