Strengthening and rationalisation of international cultural co-operation

Recommendation 497 (1967)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 25th September 1967 (8th Sitting) (see Doc. 2211see Doc. 2211, report of the Cultural Committee). Text adopted by the Assembly on 25th September 1967 (8th Sitting).

The Assembly,

1. Having examined the report on international cultural co-operation in a changing society (Doc. 2277) ;

2. Having noted with interest the 5th annual report of the Council for Cultural Co-operation (Doc. 2235), and the proposals put forward by the Working Party on the CCC's future programme for rationalising the Council of Europe's cultural activity by fixing priorities for its programme and improving its structure ;

3. Observing that the Conference of European Ministers of Education met on an ad hoc basis in September 1967 at Strasbourg ;

4. Recalling the remarkable statement on "Cultural Co-operation and Peace" made in September 1966 by Mr. Maheu, Director General of UNESCO, thanking UNESCO for its instructive Memorandum 1967 (Doc. 2251) and noting with satisfaction that Organisation's recent efforts to intensify its activities in Europe ;

5. Reaffirming the views it expressed in Resolution 302, by which it decided to direct its efforts in the future towards a systematic exploration of living conditions as they are likely to be in the Europea community of the future, thus adopting a standpoint of permanent anticipation ;

6. Convinced that the new responsibilities of Governments arising from the problems raised by the accelerated development of industrial society come within the cultural sphere in so far as they must, as advocated by Articles 26 and 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, guarantee each individual and all peoples :

a the necessary education to enable them to profit at all ages from work and leisure ;

b an ever fuller enjoyment of their cultural heritage, and participation in all cultural activities and benefits that result from scientific progress ;

c a fitting and beautiful environment, free of the undesirable effects of uncontrolled development inspired by exclusively economic and commercial considerations ;

7. Considering that these responsibilities are, by the nature of things, the same in all European countries, and that they demand the framing and application of long-term policies for cultural and educational development ;

8. Convinced that it would be to the advantage of these countries, in their efforts to guide developments towards the best solutions, to co-operate so as to benefit from their respective experience with a view to establishing a common line of action ;

9. Considering that the time seems to have come to organise European intergovernmental co-operation in the educational and cultural field in accordance with the requirements of multilateralism as an instrument of technical co-operation ;

10. Observing that national machinery for international cultural co-operation is ill-adapted to the fresh tasks of such cooperation, and observing further the great disproportion between the funds allowed by Governments for the bilateral sector and for the multilateral sector ;

11. Believing that revision of themethods and machinery of intergovernmental cooperation is therefore indispensable and necessitates :

on the national level, a better adaptation of the authorities directly concerned to the requirements of international co-operation ;

on the international level, the establishment of machinery for direct collaboration between those authorities ;

the devising and application of new methods for financing international activities in relation to objectives and programmes, which should also in some cases enable funds at present allocated to bilateral activities to be gradually transferred to the implementation of multilateral programmes ;

12. Considering that the Council of Europe with its Council for Cultural Cooperation, on the one hand, and the Conference of European Ministers of Education, on the other hand, are suitable instruments for establishing the new machinery essential to Europe,

13. Recommends the Committee of Ministers to request member Governments to strengthen intergovernmental co-operation in Europe in the education and cultural fields by :

A. rationalising structures for European co-operation by :

constituting the Conference of European Ministers of Education on a permanent basis as an independent technical conference ;

providing that Conference with a subsidiary body to receive instructions and directives from it and present reports to it -a role which the CCC could fulfil without any change in its present organisation ;

arranging for the Conference to have technical committees which would make recommendations and reports to it direct -functions to which the Permanent Committees of the CCC could easily be converted ;

B. making sure that the objectives of the policy followed by them in the Council of Europe and in UNESCO are the same as far as the "European region" is concerned ;

C. reconsidering the methods of financing international cultural cc-operation so as to enable resources to be assigned to match real needs and by arranging in certain cases for the transfer to multilateral cooperation of funds at present earmarked for bilateral activities ;

D. adapting the structure of national services now enjoying the benefits of international cultural co-operation to the needs of that co-operation.