CULTURE: EUROPEAN APPEAL FOR ACTION 6 DECEMBRE 2003

EUROPEAN APPEAL FOR ACTION 6 DECEMBRE 2003

In almost all European countries and despite the resolutions adopted by the European Parliament in October 2002, we can see that the State is disengaging itself from the field of culture: financial crisis, cuts in subsidies as well as in social benefits… This global disengagement in favour of a market oriented culture is daming the future of thousands of workers, threatening hundreds of cultural enterprises and breaking the creative liveliness that has always been Europe’s main asset.

WHY?

The European countries have the obligation to enforce the agreements (GATS) that were signed in 1994 within the WTO. These agreements are meant to render all services to the open market: culture, but also health, education and scientific research.

The French contract workers in the performing arts (Intermittents) have been struggling these past months to preserve a unemployment benefit specifically adapted to their field. The reform underway is not a remote incident. It is part of a whole series of non-negotiated reforms that are designed to open markets and that will fatally end up weakening both the workers and the unemployed. The dismantling of this benefit closes the doors to a future coordination of the artist’s and technician’s social stand in Europe that could have been driven by equal notions of social progress and promoting free movement.

Decembre 6, 2003: Lille (France) «European Capital for Culture 2004» Decembre 31, 2003: Genova (Italy) «European Capital for Culture 2004»:

ON THIS OCCASION, WE WISH TO:

• Insist once more on our determination to have Culture inscribed as a Fundamental right in the new European Constitution
• Claim the attribution of the necessary resources in order to elaborate a truly ambitious cultural policy in Europe. A policy that would underline "cultural diversity" as a ground principal; a policy that would focus on the men and women who foster that diversity.

ON DECEMBER 6 2003, WE CALL UPON YOU TO

demonstrate, both artistically and collectively, along with all those who yield culture (music, film, plastic arts, performing arts, literature…) in a central location of your city…
and to let the media know you are there, to have everyone know that culture is very much alive everywhere and that it must therefore be sustained wherever it is.

For any additional information:
leseuropes@no-log.org
info@forumdelteatro.org
esacc2004@yahoo.fr

COMMISSIONS LES EUROPES
(Coordination Nationale des Intermittents de France)
http://cip-idf.ouvaton.org
COLLECTIF BELLACIAO (France)
http://www.bellaciao.org
COORDINATION POUR UN AUTRE CINEMA (France)
FORUM DEL TEATRO (Italia)
http://www.forumdelteatro.org

activated public forum (!) : to answer to this article
http://www.forumdelteatro.org/article.php3?id_article=34