by Hedy d’Ancona
European Community Cultural Action.
On the 100th anniversary of the Haagse Kunstkring, there is every reason to look back and at the same time look forward to the place of the arts in The Hague. A broader perspective is also conceivable, namely the place of the arts in Europe. This more expansive perspective is one that has also been offered in the past by Haagse Kunstkring itself, and to which attention is given elsewhere in this book. However, the European perspective for the arts and for the artist is not a perspective of the past. And if the European perspective were already in the future, that future – as far as I am concerned – has already begun.
Paradoxes
Something strange is going on with Europe. On the one hand, we are in the process of perfecting the European Community into a unified Political Union in which more and more elements of political and social action coincide. This then happens at a time when developments are underway in Eastern Central Europe that are also of revolutionary importance culturally. The new openness of Eastern and Central Europe contrasts sharply with the view that the European Community could become a closed bloc in this “new” Europe that is forming. I do not share that view, but the fact is that there are two trajectories, and those trajectories have yet to be brought into the same track.
On the other hand, a process is underway in which increasing European integration simultaneously raises more and more questions: a paradox in which the unification process generates its own doubts. As the European Political Union approaches, the number of questions and doubts multiply. This is perhaps also a cause of the difficult negotiations within the framework of the European Political Union.
But the direction is still clear, and even if we can’t jump, with small steps the integration process is moving forward. Does this now mean that we will also slowly merge culturally into the still nebulous atmosphere of the European Community? To ask the question is to answer it, but for now the nebulousness deprives us of a clear view of the future. Still, we must find our way.
In so doing, we may be able to identify a few beacons on which we could be heading. Before indicating what those beacons might be, I would like to say something about the starting point of the cultural route we are following across the Community and about the crossroads at which we have arrived.
Brussels I
The European Community was created primarily out of the need to achieve a single internal market. An economic starting point, therefore. This does not detract in any way from the original ideals of the “founding fathers”, which were to develop this economic community into a more comprehensive whole of supranational cooperation or integration into a single European Political Union. Yet it took a long time before the cultural sector was also included as a separate area of attention in the whole of community policy, and even that inclusion is not complete.
At the end of 1982, Community Culture Ministers met for the first time – informally – in Naples to exchange views on the necessity and desirability of cultural action. A few years earlier, in fact, the European Commission had for the first time formulated an action program for the cultural sector. At the time, however, this largely fell short of good intentions.
An important stimulus for closer cultural cooperation within the Community was provided by the so-called “Solemn Declaration on the European Union” by the heads of government meeting in Stuttgart in June 1983. Suddenly it was all there: work was to be done on European cultural awareness, on intensive cultural exchange, on the protection of the European cultural heritage and on coordination of cultural cooperation with countries outside the Community. All of this concerned intergovernmental cooperation in particular, i.e. cooperation between the Member States. There was no real Community, i.e. supranational, program at that time.
This is still not the case and even more so: there is no possibility of a common cultural policy at all, simply because the European Constitution, the EEC Treaty, does not provide any starting points for such a cultural policy. What is happening is partly a continuation of intergovernmental cooperation, and partly – insofar as Community policy is concerned – a derivation of the EEC Treaty: in that Treaty the free movement of goods, services, people and capital is regulated by prevailing “market” principles.
Certain cultural fields or activities can [in part] also be included in that market principle. When we talk about copyright, for example, or about the audiovisual sector, or about the circulation of cultural goods, of course there is such a market principle. But that is one side of the story.
The other side is that cultural policy is – almost by definition – a policy at odds with economic principles: cultural policy is market-filling and market-correcting policy.
The free play of economic and social forces leaves hardly enough room for new experiments and developments or for cultural pluralism and individuality. Support and stimulation are needed to actually bring these – cultural – principles to fruition. Some of this can come from the market itself. For the most part, however, it will have to come from patronage, private or public.
In Europe, in this regard, we have built a long tradition of supporting the fine arts. That tradition is still alive today: I derive part of the legitimacy of my portfolio from it.
But it goes even further. Especially under the influence of technological developments and processes of internationalization, the world may well become a “global village.” A world in which political, economic and also cultural connections are becoming ever closer. Perhaps more than ever, an active cultural policy is required to maintain some cultural individuality and diversity in the face of the cultural violence of Dallas and Dynasty. A policy that, in addition to contact with foreign cultures, also emphatically maintains the connection with one’s own cultural development.
Brussels II
On that last point, its own cultural development, there is yet another paradox. In Europe as we know it, traditions of state patronage are deeply rooted. But the European Community regards any form of government intervention as in principle contrary to the EEC Treaty. Measured by the letter of the Treaty, public authorities in the Member States may not provide subsidies that exclusively benefit their own residents. This would lead to discrimination by nationality within the Community as a whole, thus creating unfair forms of competition and thus violating the principle of free movement.
In theory, this could mean that, for example, the Dutch government is no longer authorized to provide subsidies to Dutch filmmakers or Dutch authors, if these subsidies cannot also be provided to foreign filmmakers and authors at the same time. From the same perspective, the interest subsidy scheme, which is intended in part to stimulate the purchase of Dutch visual art, could not crawl through the critical eye of the Community Needle either. In practice, i.e. on the basis of review procedures to date, the elasticity of the EEC Treaty on this point does not appear to be so bad in a certain sense. But in other areas, such as with regard to lending rights and broadcasting policy, Community action is already giving rise to necessary adjustments.
There is, in short, an incompatibility in principle between Community law and cultural policy, or at least a practical lack of clarity in the relationship between the two giants.
For this reason, the Dutch government at the time submitted proposals at the same time as other countries for further regulation within the EEC Treaty for the cultural sector.
These proposals formed the basis for the text of the article on culture now added to the EEC Treaty and for the new provision in Article 92(3) on aid in the field of culture.
With the changes to the EEC Treaty a nuance has taken place, as it were, which – to remain in Brussels terminology – recognizes the specific nature of cultural goods and services and approaches them as such. It is explicitly not a question of moving the cultural policies of the Member States to Brussels and there merging them into one common approach. At most, the Community should play a supporting or coordinating role vis-à-vis the Member States. Not a surrogate role.
At the same time as the Netherlands, other countries have also submitted similar proposals. These proposals are part of a larger package of measures currently being discussed in the framework of the European Political Union. Hopefully a positive decision – at least on the culture part – can already be taken at the Maastricht Summit at the end of 1991, but there is no certainty about this two months before then.
Brussels III
The European integration process thus presents certain problems for cultural policy in the Member States. These, however, I consider solvable. Some think that these problems are of a secondary nature. Primary in their views is the conviction that the entire Dutch cultural identity will be lost in the growing Europe, and if not the Dutch cultural identity, then at least the Dutch language. I am not that pessimistic.
I believe we can also reverse the reasoning followed here, which is widely reported in newspaper publications these days. Dutch culture has always been an open culture, which has absorbed many international-cultural influences without being substantially affected itself. Precisely the frequent and intensive contacts with surrounding cultures have only enriched, strengthened and further developed Dutch culture. This is a process that, at best, can only intensify as a result of European integration and the removal of borders.
The latter is in our own hands. At least insofar as we continue to have our own cultural-political leeway, in which we ourselves can continue to co-direct the kind of cultural development we agree on in this country. The Dutch language and culture are strong enough anyway to “confront” foreign countries. Even stronger: this confrontation is also necessary to guarantee the continuous development and strengthening of our own language and culture in the future. This therefore requires self-awareness and active participation in international developments. Within the EC we must ensure that there is room for this. But in that space lie unsuspected and important opportunities for a profiled Dutch position on the cultural map of Europe and the world. We must seize these opportunities no matter what, I am convinced.
The Hague
And then I return to my own country, more specifically: to the region of “The Hague” in which the Haagse Kunstkring as well as the Minister of Culture are active. In that region, my story may coincide with the development that the Haagse Kunstkring has also gone through in the last 100 years: forming a circle around the art and culture that is close to our hearts.
But with one important caveat.
Every circle derives its right to exist and its identity from the existence of other circles and towards these other circles we must keep the shutters open. The awareness of an “open” circle, in which outside influences are not excluded a priori, but absorbed and used for our own development and reinforcement. A healthy suspicion towards the suspected threats from outside and at the same time seizing the unsuspected opportunities that also lie in that confrontation with the big outside world. That is the intersection of two roads we have arrived at. We must go both ways. On that journey, I wish Haagse Kunstkring much prosperity for the next 100 years.
Rijswijk, December 1991
