20/12/2006

The UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression, which includes support policies for audiovisual works, will come into force on March 18, exactly three months after the official submission of its 30th ratification.

At the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on Monday, 13 countries (primarily EU members) officially deposited their instrument of ratification, bringing the total number received to 35. Ratifying members of the European Commission were accepted as being "any regional economic integration organisation”.

To mark the historical occasion, the European Commission organised a ceremony on Tuesday at the Palais des Beaux Arts (Fine Arts Palace) in Brussels, which was attended by several European Ministers of Culture and cultural personalities.

What is most important at this stage is that European countries are represented in the future executive body of Cultural Diversity. The UNESCO texts have provided for three European headquarters and three in Eastern Europe (both EU and non-EU Member States).

European partners are currently in the process of drawing up a Code of Conduct whose keywords are expected to be good co-ordination of operations and good communication. However, while not all of the 25 States have yet ratified the Convention, the Commission can represent the whole as long as the diversity of cultural expression of its members is preserved.

Moreover, not all of the 148 countries (154 in total) were satisfied with the original Convention they approved at the 33rd UNESCO Conference in October 2005. Since then, several countries in the southern hemisphere have increasingly voiced their concerns at important meetings. They fear that ever more sophisticated technological change will exclude them from the audiovisual field. The Convention has also made a provision for a mechanism of solidarity through the creation an international fund.

Outside of Europe, African countries have been the most numerous to ratify, a fact that can be explained by their close relations with Europe. According to Henri Benkoski, an expert at the Communauté française de Belgique, "If, at the upcoming UNESCO General Conference in October, we haven’t reached a greater number of regions and languages, it will certainly be more difficult to do this subsequently". While 35 countries may be an excellent start, this number carries insufficient weight on the international cultural landscape.

*For the moment: Albania, Belarus, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Croatia, Djibouti, Equator, Guatemala, India, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Namibia, Peru, Republic of Moldova, Rumania, Senegal, Togo. December 18, 2006: Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and France.

(Translated from French)