Why we need European cultural policies: the impact of EU ...

In spring 2005 two founding members of the European Union – France and The Netherlands –voted against the proposed Constitutional Treaty, thus provoking, or rather making even morevisible, a crisis in current reflections on the future of the European Union. Even though the DraftConstitution was not supposed to bring any radical changes in the treatment of culture,38 itcertainly represented a step forward in making the European Union a stronger political entityand also making the structure of Europe easier to understand, with the legal integration of theEuropean Union and the European Communities.In relation to culture, the Draft Constitution sought to reaffirm the exclusion of any harmonizationof laws and regulations of member states,39 but also put an obligation on the European Council– the highest body of the European Union – to act unanimously for the negotiation and conclusionof agreements in the field of trade in cultural and audio-visual services where there might be a riskof prejudicing the Union’s cultural and linguistic diversity.40In a way, treatment of culture in the Draft Constitution was only confirming an approach that hasdominated cultural policy-making process in the European Union for several decades and that isthe concept of l’exception culturelle. Even though this term has been used primarily to describeEuropean policy of excluding culture from the international trade negotiations,41 it is possible toclaim that the same logic of excluding culture from `other rules’ was applied internally withinthe EU.Although the concept of l’exception culturelle 42 was not conceived as an integral part of theEuropean Union’s policies, nor was it part of the EU’s formal agenda during the enlargement, itinfluenced the position of culture in that process. The fact that culture was only marginally presentin the EU Treaty and the acquis communautaire, did not provide a foundation for including cultureon the agenda.The question remains: could the European Constitution have gone beyond the current wording ofArticle 151, as proposed in the Ruffolo Report, to forge a new legal framework, in which concernfor the future of culture was translated into more concrete language, including obligations onmember states to respect and promote culture and cultural diversity? 4336Part 2 European Union, culture and cultural policy: the impact of EU enlargement