29/11/2024 Standing Committee | Parliamentary support
The Council of Europe’s Cultural Routes – a series of 47 different itineraries across Europe which trace the continent’s rich tapestry of traditions, languages and customs – and their role in encouraging intercultural dialogue were celebrated at a parliamentary round table held on the margins of a meeting of the Assembly’s Standing Committee in Luxembourg on 29 November.
The Cultural Routes programme, created in 1987, brings people and places together in networks of shared history and heritage, covering themes from architecture and landscape to religious influences, gastronomy, intangible heritage and major figures of European art, music and literature.
Participants celebrated the cultural richness shown by the Routes, as well as the values of underlying them, and explored the ways in which they could help to foster dialogue and create a sense of belonging and identity among Europeans. Council of Europe member states were encouraged to join the programme and sponsor new Routes, while examples of good practice in creating and running them were highlighted.
The event was opened by the President of the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies Claude Wiseler and PACE President Theodoros Rousopoulos, and saw interventions by Luxembourg Culture Minister Eric Thill, PACE rapporteur on this topic Andries Gryffroy, the Chair of the Governing Board of the Cultural Routes Enlarged Partial Agreement Meltem Önhon and the President of the European Institute of Cultural Routes André Biever. The Chair of Luxembourg’s PACE delegation Gusty Graas and PACE Secretary General Despina Chatzivassiliou-Tsovilis provided conclusions.
