Ministers' Dossier

Inclusive Europe?
The Role of Culture in the European Integration

By András Bozóki for the Reader of the conference

The European Union almost doubled its membership from 15 to 25 countries just over a year ago. Two more countries are set to join in 2007 and discussions are ongoing about the possible accession of still more. While the sheer size and numbers would suggest inclusiveness and an unprecedented success of the European project, the political trends and the social mood within Europe as a whole and in individual countries prove otherwise. The refusal of the European Constitution by the majority of voters in France and the Netherlands stopped (or at least seriously halted) the attempt to help consolidate the enlarged Europe through the deepening of integration. This might foreshadow a long-term European stalemate and the weakening of the European vision. Can culture contribute to resolving this political crisis?

Enlargement to include the ten new countries increased diversity within the EU. Differences in economic development between the richest and the poorest regions in Europe are manifold. This intensified fears in the Western European societies concerning the growth of unemployment through the "invasion of guest workers" from new member states. Inclusiveness of societies could not keep pace with the sudden increase in the number of member-states. The structural problems of the Western European social model result in the understandable insecurity of societies that perceive the threats to their job security to come not from the competitiveness pressures on Europe as a whole, but from the presence of immigrants. The lack of political consensus concerning the future shape of the EU further increases this feeling of insecurity and results in a refusal to come to terms with growing diversity.

What role can culture play in discovering the worth of this increased diversity? And what are the common values shared by the growing number of countries and societies? Could the values of solidarity, tolerance and equality of opportunity be extended to include the newcomers? Could culture create an integration across this diversity? Could a common European identity be detected in 25 or more societies? Could we conceptualise cultural policies at national and European levels in a way that contributes to the strengthening of European identity and the deepening of the integration process?

The lack of enthusiasm and political discontent with both national and European politics as well as growing hostility towards migrants do not only characterise "old" European states. European societies alike have to come to terms with the following questions: What are the ways for immigrants to become European? Could they become European while keeping their own culture or only through rejecting it and embracing the culture of the host country? While several political actors, who feed and thrive on anti-immigrant feelings in their society readily use cultural arguments about migrants posing a threat to the home culture, mainstream pro- Europeans still have to come up with a convincing definition of what Europeanness means in a cultural sense. How can we become more appreciative of our differences? How can solidarity and tolerance be reinforced? How can we build a multi-layered European identity?

Short-term calculative thinking seems to dominate the approach of societies and elites to integration. Old member states fear the loss of transfers or the rise of their payments, while the new members define benefits largely in terms of Euros received from the EU budget. What else Europe is about seems to be forgotten. Culture should play an important role in the much needed rediscovery, re-evaluation and reinforcement of the shared values of an enlarged Europe. Writers, theorists, politicians, social scientists, artists, cultural activists and community leaders should all play a role in this process.

If we assume that culture plays a role in reviving the European vision, policy-oriented questions may come to sight. Should we consider making and nurturing culture an explicit priority in European policies? Should we think of strengthening multilateral collaborative cultural projects, and introducing new ones? Should we foster trans-national cultural programs? Should we aim to create and promote a truly pan-European culture? If so, what could be the content of such a project? If not, what are the reasons for such a refusal?

On the other hand, can we aspire to create a pan-European culture before cultural and social integration is realised on the national level, as long as access to culture-conceived in a narrow or a broad sense-shows huge inequalities? Who owns culture, who has access to it, who profits from culture and who takes part in shaping it?

In Hungary, for example, if we divide society into fifths, we find a difference of 1 to 220 between the cultural activity of the bottom and top 20 percent! (Data are taken from a national survey, and activity is measured by attending cultural institutions from the cinema to libraries, and reading books.) 

If we divide the society into three strata, the ratio between bottom and top is still 1 to 34; and taking the bottom and top 50 percent, the more active half of Hungarians still "consume" nearly 90 percent of institutional culture than the other half-what is the minister of culture, what am I to do with and for the other half?

Cultural consumption in and out of cultural institutions-that is, attending theatres, museums, concerts, cinemas and cultural centres, as well as reading books-is closely related to the level of schooling. Those with the longest time spent in education and highest income perform the highest cultural activeness. In terms of cultural habits, about 15-16 percent of Hungarians constitute the active upper layer. It is they who regularly attend cultural events, participate in other leisure activities, read, do sports, take part in various socio-cultural and civic actions, nurture live social contacts, belong to groups of friends, speak foreign languages, use new technologies. Moreover, it is they who go to restaurants, pubs and cafés in the greatest proportion. The next roughly one quarter of our society limit their cultural activity to smaller scales, but still are regular clients and consumers of institutional culture, and not excluded from community activities.

Further down the scale, 40-45 percent of our society lives a life of reduced interactions. They do not engage in cultural consumption and take no part in recreational or other self-enriching individual or community actions. Their social contacts hardly go beyond the closest family and neighbourhood. They remain excluded from the social life of the town or village, either because of lack of will or lack of activity to join. Most of their free time is spent watching television. The core of this huge group is elderly, unemployed, uneducated people in small settlements, often living alone with poor health conditions. But also painfully high is the proportion of young among them, for whom creating and showing the possibilities in our society is one of the most important challenges for the future.

The causes of such a situation are obviously largely historical, going back to centuries and also to the failure of state socialism, further aggravated by the hardships of the political transition and economic transformation. Have more fortunate societies developed successful, effective programmes for the integration of the culturally excluded? Where can we find such models? Which of these can be exported to other countries? Or do we assume that the increase of cultural interaction between nations, and the promotion of trans-national cultural and community activities will have a favourable affect on the social cohesion of cultural "outcasts" in each nation of Europe?

During the recent months, all Member States have been preparing their individual National Development Plans for the 2007-13 period, and plan to submit them to the European Commission soon. How can we use European funds in these existing frameworks for developing and sponsoring cultural projects? What are the best national strategies and the best practices in planning for culture that helps maintaining diversity and inclusiveness?

I would like to welcome all of our esteemed guests in Budapest, sincerely hoping that our meeting may offer an opportunity to exchange views about all of these questions and dilemmas. And hopefully, we will reach a consensus about at least some of them.