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Agents and Impacts of Interorganizational Transfers between the Council of Europe and the European Union in the Area of Cultural Policy

Agents et impacts des transferts inter-organisationnels entre le Conseil de l’Europe et l’Union européenne dans le domaine de la politique culturelle
Agentes e impactos de las transferencias interorganizacionales entre el Consejo de Europa y la Unión Europea en el ámbito de la política cultural
Agenten und Auswirkungen organisationsübergreifende Transfers zwischen dem Europarat und der Europäischen Union im Bereich der Kulturpolitik
Oriane Calligaro
Traduction de Clare Ferguson
Cet article est une traduction de :
Agents et impacts des transferts inter-organisationnels entre le Conseil de l’Europe et l’Union européenne dans le domaine de la politique culturelle [fr]

Résumés

L’article analyse les dynamiques de transfert en matière de politique culturelle entre le Conseil de l’Europe et l’Union européenne (UE). Il se fonde sur deux cas d’étude : la politique audiovisuelle (années 1980) et l’élaboration des programmes culturels communautaires après le traité de Maastricht (années 1990-2000). Dans les années 1980, dans un contexte de faible institutionnalisation des relations entre le Conseil de l’Europe et l’UE, les hauts-fonctionnaires mandatés par leur gouvernement facilitent la circulation de normes d’une arène institutionnelle à une autre, par leurs échanges informels en marge des négociations. Dans les années 1990 et 2000, des accords institutionnalisent la circulation des normes et pratiques. Cependant, le multi-positionnement de délégués gouvernementaux, la mobilité de certains agents à très haut niveau entre les deux organisations ou entre la sphère institutionnelle et celle du management culturel ouvrent des canaux essentiels de transferts entre l’UE et le Conseil de l’Europe.

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  • 1 Acronyms are listed in Appendix 3.
  • 2 The European Community (officially “European Communities,” which comprised the European Economic C (...)

1In the 1970s, actors within the European Commission and the European Parliament (EP1) mobilized to promote cultural action within the European Community.2 Research studies have shown the specific dynamics at play in the European Community/Union contexts (Littoz-Monnet 2013: 79-89) as well as the influence, in terms of transnational cultural cooperation, of non-governmental and international organizations such as UNESCO and the Council of Europe (Brossat 1999; Autissier 2005). The Council of Europe, which by the 1970s had already been developing and implementing pan-European cultural cooperation initiatives for two decades, was the most influential model in this respect. While many authors have described the organization as a laboratory of ideas or a think tank in the field of cultural policy, there has been no research conducted on the concrete nature of its influence (Calligaro 2017; Dubois 2001: 263-266; Sassatelli 2009: 58; Terrillon-Mackay 2001). The literature has nevertheless demonstrated the specific role played by informal networks in the interactions between the Council of Europe and the European Community/Union (Calligaro & Patel 2017) and the way in which the nature of the relations between the two organizations has shifted between collaboration and competition (Joris & Vandenberghe 2008; Kolb 2013).

2A study of the interactions between the Council of Europe and the European Community/Union can inform a number of different reflections on the nature of European integration. One such reflection aims, to borrow Patel’s (2013) words, at “provincialising European Union,” that is at highlighting the actors, networks, and international organizations that have contributed to integrating the European space (Fickers & Griset 2019; Kaiser & Schot 2014). The Council of Europe has been a key but sometimes forgotten actor in European integration in many sectors, including the cultural sector. The second reflection that this article intends to contribute to focuses on the dynamics of interorganizational transfers in the field of public policy. A large body of literature has examined these transfers with a view to responding to a number of questionings: What technical, cognitive, and normative materials have been transferred and used in public policy design, and what channels and actors have made the transfer processes possible (Dolowitz & Marsh 1996, 2000; Koops & Biermann 2017; Oberthür & Gehring 2011)? The European Community/Union was forced to develop action in areas where other international organizations were already active and influential as its competences expanded (Jørgensen 2009), and its interactions with these organizations impacted its policy design and implementation. This has been demonstrated for various domains, including security in interaction with the OSCE (Van Ham 2009) and NATO (Varwick 2005), trade with the WTO (De Búrca & Scott 2001), and health with the WHO (Guigner 2006). The European Community/Union’s borrowings from the Council of Europe’s normative system in the areas of democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental rights have also been documented (Joris & Vandenberghe 2008; Hoffmann-Riem 2014; Gawrich 2017; Greer et al. 2018). However, no study has yet been conducted on such transfers in the field of cultural policy.

3The emergence of European Community/Union norms in the area of cultural policy pertained to three broad public policy areas. The first concerned industrial and trade matters, because cultural goods had played an increasing role in global trade since the late 1980s. The second involved socioeconomic issues, due to the cultural industries’ economic, symbolic, and media influence as well as the political pressure that professional cultural organizations can exert on national and European Community/Union institutions. The third related to political and cultural matters, because cultural products and creations were not just essential elements of national, regional, and local identity but also potential drivers of a common European identity, which made them objects of tension and competition between these different registers of identification (Calligaro & Vlassis 2017: 8). It is therefore essential to analyse the interactions and transfers between the Council of Europe and the European Community/Union to assess the impact they had on these major policy areas.

4This article reveals a variety of modalities of interorganizational transfer and shows the Council of Europe’s role in these transfers, whether as a laboratory of ideas and norms, a creator of professional networks, or a main actor in the implementation of joint programmes with the European Community/Union. In this sense, the Council of Europe did not just serve as a passive resource from which the European Community/Union could draw ideas to incorporate into their policies, it was an active promoter of these transfers, aiming variously to obstruct the European Community/Union’s intervention in the cultural sector or to help concretize their projects. This article therefore examines these different modalities by focusing on two fundamental dimensions of the transfers. One is the nature of what was transferred (ideas, norms, practices) and how this shaped the European Community/Union’s cultural action. The other is the “transfer agents,” in other words the actors who made this circulation possible. In line with the existing literature, the findings confirm the major role played by mobile and multipositional actors in the contemporary transfer dynamics. In the contexts examined here, there were essentially three types of actors: senior national officials, mandated by their governments to negotiate within European Community/Union or Council of Europe forums; high-ranking international officials, with successive mandates within the two organizations; and cultural management professionals, who developed transnational cultural networks and went on to hold permanent positions with one of the organizations.

5The analysis was based on two case studies covering two distinct periods, namely the pre-Maastricht 1980s and the post-Maastricht 1990s and 2000s. The first case study looked at the audiovisual industry. When the European Economic Community (EEC) began to act in this sector in the early 1980s, it was competing with the Council of Europe, which had been a key actor in the field since the 1960s. In a context of major disagreements between the European Community member states, intergovernmental negotiations facilitated a transfer of Council of Europe norms to the European Community framework when relations between the two organizations had barely been formalized. The second case study concerned the Council of Europe’s influence in the European Union’s development of cultural programmes. In particular, it examined the importance of cultural networks and the role that some key mobile agents played as intermediaries between the two organizations. These two different case studies showed that regardless of whether the borrowing happened through informal negotiations or more institutionalized transfers, the European Community/Union’s incorporation of the Council of Europe’s know-how contributed in various decisive ways to the development of European Community/Union cultural policy.

6The study mobilized multiple sources. One set of data came from the following archival sources: the French ministry of culture’s international affairs department (files pertaining to the audiovisual and cinema sectors in Europe, informal meeting of the European Community culture ministers, cultural advisors’ meetings in Brussels, Council of Europe/Council for Cultural Co-operation); archives of the French Prime Minister’s office services (Service juridique et technique de l’Information, Sous-direction Audiovisuel, Action extérieure); the European Community/Union (European Commission: service “Press, information, communication and spokesperson;” Jacques Delors archives); and the Council of Europe (Directorate General for Culture and Heritage, Council for Cultural Co-operation, Steering Committee on the Mass Media). These archives provided numerous informal documents, including letters, notes, and minutes of meetings, as well as a considerable amount of institutional grey literature from the European Community/Union and the Council of Europe (reports, working documents, White Papers, European Commission directive proposals, resolutions and recommendations from the EP and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, etc.). The second set of data, which was collected with a view to supporting and elucidating the documentary sources, comprized interviews with five administrators from these organizations: Catherine Lalumière, secretary general of the Council of Europe (1989-1994); Raymond Weber, director general of Culture and Heritage at the Council of Europe (1991-2001); Irina Guidikova, head of division for Cultural Policy, Diversity, and Intercultural Dialogue at the Council of Europe (2013-2019); Jean-Michel Baer, director for Cultural Action and Audiovisual Policy, DG X, European Commission (1994-2003); and Aristotelis Bouratsis, director of the Audiovisual Policy, Culture, and Sport unit, DG X, European Commission (1994-2000).

1. Transfers Aimed at Obstructing European Community Policy? Alternating Liberalization and Protection for European Creative Productions in the Audiovisual Sector

7When the EP adopted a resolution in support of European heritage in 1974 and called for European Community action in the cultural sector, the Council of Europe was cited as a model and obvious partner (Patel & Calligaro 2017). However, when this same EP called for intervention in the audiovisual sector just a few years later (1982), the Council of Europe was presented as a competitor. Indeed, it seems the Council of Europe itself felt threatened by the EEC’s activism. As the European Community member states argued over the regulations that should be adopted for the European audiovisual sector, senior officials, mandated by their governments to negotiate in the European Community and Council of Europe arenas, facilitated a convergence of the two organizations’ regulations, notably through the transfer of normative solutions from the Council of Europe to the European Community. These transfers had a decisive impact on the European Community’s regulatory decisions, which for a while fluctuated between a minimal regulation of the freedom to provide services and concerted action to protect and promote European audiovisual works.

1. 1. The Council of Europe’s and the EEC’s Early Actions in the Audiovisual Sector: Market Regulation or Promotion of a European Culture?

  • 3 Council of Europe, Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 4 Novem (...)
  • 4 Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, Working documents, 17th May 1979.
  • 5 Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, Recommendation 926 (1981); Conseil de l’Europe, comité (...)

8The Council of Europe has been concerned since its creation with the problems posed by the free flow of information and ideas within its member states. Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms stipulates that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.”3 When direct broadcast satellite television and cable networks appeared in the 1970s, opening up new possibilities in the audiovisual sector at national and international levels, it was clear that article 10’s text no longer covered all problems connected with the reception and communication of information. As conflicts relating to competence in this area developed between international organizations and differences in approach between member states emerged, the demand for the free flow of ideas and the internationalization of cultural exchanges led to a reflection on the limits of state powers in this area (Gueydan 1989: 379). Satellite television programmes had in effect become international commercial and cultural products (Depetris 2008: 126-128). Many political actors in Europe were concerned that satellite television would mainly benefit the private sector, particularly large multinational media companies because it gave them access to national markets that until then had been inhabited by just a few national public channels. This was seen as a threat to the integrity of national cultures (Chalaby 2012: 157). The Council of Europe set up administrative structures to address these new challenges. In 1976, an ad hoc Committee of Experts on media matters offered member states a coordination, consultation, and advisory service for the drafting of legislation. It extended its reflection to many dimensions of the media, publishing numerous reports.4 In 1981, this body became the Steering Committee on the Mass Media (CDMM, Comité Directeur sur les Moyens de Communication de Masse) and was made up of senior national and international officials (some of its key figures are discussed below). In 1981, the CDMM published a series of studies that formed the basis of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s proposed convention on transfrontier television. The convention aimed in particular to establish a legal cooperative action that would ensure programme makers retained their artistic independence from both the state and international commercial interests and that they adhered to common norms concerning programme content.5

  • 6 EP, Working documents 1981-82, Document 1–1013/81, 23rd February 1982.
  • 7 EP, Working documents 1981-82, op.cit.
  • 8 European Commission, Television without Frontiers: Green Paper on the Establishment of the Common (...)
  • 9 European Commission, Programme of the Commission for 1985, 12th March 1985, Bulletin of the Europe (...)
  • 10 European Commission, White Paper on “Completing the Common Market,” COM(85) 310 final, points 115- (...)

9Although the EEC had no recognized competence in the audiovisual sector, a number of European Community actors and administrations had been involved in this area since the late 1970s and had pursued two generally incompatible approaches. Within the European Commission, the Directorate General for Internal Market (DG III) acknowledged, following rulings by the Court of Justice, that any transfrontier television programme should be considered a service subject to the freedom to provide services and proposed to develop an European Community regulatory framework for audiovisual activities in line with the EEC Treaty’s liberal doctrine (Polo 2003: 11-12). During this same period, the Directorate General for Information and Culture (DG X) was defending the need for an interventionist policy to support the cultural industries given their cultural and economic importance, echoing a policy that the French Culture Minister Jack Lang was developing in France at the time (Polo 2003: 15). It was also seeking to promote European culture and identity through the dissemination of common programmes (Collins 1998: 11-24; Polo 2003: 14). DG X’s approach was supported by the EP, which was concerned that the Council of Europe might take the lead with its draft convention, issued in 1981. In a 1982 resolution, the EP lamented the fact that, until then, only the Council of Europe had been active in the audiovisual field and announced its intention to develop more ambitious European Community action.6 It also justified this intervention through the nature of European Community law, which was far more binding than the Council of Europe’s norms.7 The European Commission’s first concrete response came in 1984 with a Green Paper on “Television without Frontiers,” a text produced by DG III that aimed, in the name of the free flow and provision of services, at opening up intra-European Community borders to national broadcasting.8 The following year, now headed by Jacques Delors, it acknowledged the importance of culture for the first time, in particular the audiovisual sector.9 Its 1985 White Paper on completing the common market proposed the creation of a common market for broadcasting.10

10It is important to note that in this first half of the 1980s, a pan-European television project was also being implemented within the framework of the European Broadcasting Union, first in the form of the prototype Eurikon in 1982 and then with the European television channel Europa TV in 1985 (Bourdon 2007). Europa TV, which seemed an ideal tool for promoting a European identity, was supported by the EP and the European Commission (Theiler 1999: 561-562). Its failure after only one year, however, further strengthened the resolve of the various European Community bodies to rapidly equip the EEC with a fitting regulatory framework for transnational broadcasting (Theiler 1999: 564).

1. 2. The European Community’s new regulatory ambitions: a minimum broadcasting quota for European Community works

  • 11 EP, Working documents 1985-86, Document A2–75/85, 5 July 1985.
  • 12 Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, 36th ordinary session, Official report, 3rd October 198 (...)
  • 13 Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, Resolution (85)5, Appendix II, 1985, p. 20.

11The Council of Europe’s plans were soon seen as a potential obstacle to the adoption of European Community regulations. A 1985 report from the EP stressed that the Council of Europe did not provide an adequate legal framework for audiovisual regulation and even criticized its attempts to influence European Community action in this field. The Council of Europe’s CDMM was accused of discussing “initiatives called for by the European Parliament and taken by the Commission in bodies that have no authority to do so” and of delivering “opinions on such matters to Community bodies in order to hamper their activities and lead them in other directions.”11 The Council of Europe was clearly now actively seeking to establish a dialogue with the EEC. This dynamic is definitively evidenced by the repeated requests in 1984 and 1985 from the Council of Europe’s secretary general at the time, Marcelino Oreja, to explore “new forms of co-operation.”12 Despite the creation of contact groups in 1985, Oreja noted that the activities of the two organizations in the audiovisual field lacked “genuine co-ordination and complementarity,” which resulted in “parallel action on the same issue, sometimes leading to divergent solutions.”13 The Council of Europe had thus become aware that the European Community’s activism in the audiovisual field was threatening its primacy in cultural policy matters.

  • 14 European Commission, COM(84)300 final/Part 2, 14 June 1984; European Commission, COM(86)146 final, (...)
  • 15 Agence Europe no 2934, 20th March 1986.
  • 16 European Council, Groupe de travail ad hoc sur les questions économiques (radiodiffusion) les 2, 1 (...)
  • 17 Council of Europe, Rapport du Comité Directeur sur les moyens de communication de masse relatif à (...)
  • 18 Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, CM(86) 255, 11.

12Its fears were confirmed by the European Commission’s 1986 Television without Frontiers (TWF) directive proposal. Incorporating DG X’s approach this time, it went much further than the deregulatory provisions that had been set out in the 1984 Green Paper by introducing interventionist and protectionist measures, including a quota system for European Community audiovisual productions.14 With a view to stemming the influx of American productions, 30% of each television channel’s airtime was to be reserved for products from the EEC. The regulation of audiovisual content was thus based on cultural as well as commercial criteria. While the EP and several member states supported these proposals from the European Commission, notably France and Italy, who were the two biggest film producers in Europe at the time15, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Denmark were opposed to any extension of European Community competences.16 Moreover, some countries who were not members of the EEC but who were members of the Council of Europe, such as Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland, felt that a European Community solution was not appropriate for a Europe-wide problem.17 To counter the European Commission’s plan, the Austrian government organized the first Council of Europe interministerial conference on mass communications policy in Vienna in December 1986 to concretize the convention drafted in 1981. At this meeting, the ministers present concluded that the Council of Europe was “the most suitable institution for shaping a coherent mass media policy and for implementing such a policy.”18 Those EEC members opposed to the directive readily supported a solution from within the Council of Europe framework, as Ivo Schwartz, a European Commission official and the main author of the TWF Directive, noted in 1988: “Let’s not forget that the idea for the Convention came from those opposed to the creation of a common broadcasting market and that this is above all a manoeuvre to prevent or to at least delay the Directive” (Schwartz 1989: 17, author’s translation). The Council of Europe and the EEC thus entered into a race to be the first to impose regulations.

  • 19 Official Journal of the European Communities, no C110, 27th April 1988, 0.3-21.
  • 20 Agence Europe, no 4714, 14th February 1988, p. 9.

13On 6 April 1988, the European Commission submitted an amended version of the directive to the European Council. At the request of the EP, this version was even more ambitious with regard to support for audiovisual productions, with a minimum broadcasting quota of 60% for European Community works. It also introduced firmer regulations on advertising, limiting it to 15% of daily broadcasting time for cross-border programmes and restricting it in terms of form (perfectly identifiable and distinct from television programmes) and content (adherence to a code of conduct).19 The European Commission urged the European Council to prioritize a European Community directive over a Council of Europe convention in order to lay the foundations for a genuine common market for the audiovisual sector.20

1. 3. Interorganizational Transfers for the Benefit of the Lowest Cultural Bidder: the Watering-Down of Protective Measures for European Audiovisual Works

  • 21 Council of Europe, Comité Directeur sur les Moyens de communications de masse (CDMM): rapport du c (...)
  • 22 “Réunion informelle des ministres européens chargés de la politique des communications de masse, V (...)
  • 23 “Activités de Bernard Blin, avant sa nomination comme chef de bureau,” Premier ministre, service j (...)
  • 24 “Radiodiffusion (Télévision sans frontière) et élaboration de directives,” dossier 521. 5 R, 19900 (...)
  • 25 “Michel Berthod, nouvelle vigie du Moulin du Roc,” La Nouvelle République, 17 February 2015 [acces (...)
  • 26 Ministère délégué à la Communication, dossiers de Michel Berthod, chargé de mission pour les affai (...)
  • 27 Michel Lummaux, “Note à l’attention de Monsieur Berthod. Réunion jointe du Comité Directeur sur le (...)
  • 28 Bernard Blin, “Note sur la réunion informelle des ministres européens sur la politique des communi (...)
  • 29 Telex from Bernard Blin to Michel Berthod, “Projet de Convention relatif à la télévision sans fron (...)
  • 30 Letter from Jacques Delors to Jacques Santer, 10th September 1988, 19900634/206, SGCI 10494, ANF. (...)
  • 31 European Council, Conclusions of the European Council of Rhodes (2nd-3rd December 1988), Bulletin (...)

14The interactions between negotiators from the European Community and the Council of Europe and those mandated by member state governments were to play a central role in the mechanics of normative solution transfers from the Council of Europe to the EEC. These “transfer agents” included a number of senior French officials who were delegated to the two organizations and who contributed to softening France’s position as the most ardent defender of an interventionist European Community directive. One of these agents was diplomat Michel Lummaux, who was director of (foreign audiovisual) communication at the French ministry of foreign affairs and vice-president of the Council of Europe’s CDMM at the time.21 Another, Bernard Blin, represented the French government in negotiations on the Council of Europe Convention.22 Blin had worked at the French television network TF1 (delegation for foreign affairs) between 1976 and 1985 before being appointed head of Affaires Internationales du Service Juridique et Technique de l’Information in 1986 (the international affairs office within the legal and technical service for information, a French prime ministerial department).23 A third agent was Michel Berthod, who was mandated by the French ministry of communication to sit on the ad hoc committee of experts for the TWF Directive to conduct negotiations for the European Community.24 Berthod was a graduate of the prestigious École Nationale d’Administration and had spent most of his career at the French ministry of culture before serving as director of the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel from 1983 to 1987.25 In 1988, acting as the official representative of Catherine Tasca, France’s Communications Minister, he monitored the negotiations on the TWF Directive26. The archives reveal that Lummaux and Blin regularly informed Berthod of the progress of the negotiations on the Council of Europe Convention.27 They tried to convince him that the Convention, even if unsatisfactory, was a useful step for France: “It will not be possible to maintain a maximalist position in Brussels for long. It might therefore be in our interests to first obtain an agreement on a minimal level of European regulation within the Council of Europe framework, which would not subsequently exclude progress at the European Community level.”28 Blin also discussed with the CDMM’s German delegate the possibilities of converging Council of Europe and EEC projects, because Germany strongly opposed a European directive. Blin thus informed the French Prime Minister’s office that the adoption of a Council of Europe Convention was the only way to override the German veto on the European Community Directive.29 The impact of these exchanges between the negotiators and the delegates to the two international organizations was not lost on the European Commission’s leadership. In September 1988, Jacques Delors wrote to one of his committee members: “We’ve noted that several member states are trying to replace some aspects of the Commission’s proposal with solutions devised by experts sitting in the Council of Europe.”30 This mechanism of transferring norms through third-party negotiators ultimately proved effective. In December 1988, the European Council declared that it was “important that the Community’s efforts should be deployed in a manner consistent with the Council of Europe Convention” and asked the European Commission to “adapt the proposal [for the TWF Directive] in the light of the Council of Europe Convention,” which had been finalized the month before.31

  • 32 Council of Europe, Treaty no 132, 5th May 1989; European Community, European Council, Official Jou (...)
  • 33 European Council, Directive 89/552/EEC of 3rd October 1989 on the coordination of certain provisio (...)

15This transfer of norms from the Council of Europe Convention meant that the most interventionist measures of the Directive were abandoned. The main bone of contention, the proposed “quota” for European works, was resolved through a less precise and therefore less restrictive formulation inspired by the wording in the Convention. The broadcasting of European works must now tend towards a majority proportion of broadcasting time. Moreover, the notion of European works was extended beyond the EEC to products originating in third countries party to the Council of Europe Convention. In the field of advertising, the regulations adopted were much more accommodating, again in line with the Convention, allowing domestic programmes of a purely national or regional nature to depart from the conditions imposed on other types of programmes.32 Generally speaking, the wording of the provisions was flexible, leaving the state responsible for implementing them substantial room for manoeuvre. Despite the EP’s efforts to retain the quotas, this watered-down version of the 1986 TWF Directive was ultimately adopted on 3 October 1989.33 While the transfer of norms and practices from the Council of Europe to the EEC in previous decades had evidenced a greater focus on the social and anthropological dimension of culture, beyond just the economic and commercial aspects (Calligaro 2017), the opposite paradoxically happened with the TWF Directive. The transfers from the Council of Europe actually limited the cultural scope of the Directive by stripping it of the elements that aimed to protect European audiovisual creation from international competition and the influence of advertising.

1. 4. Another Transfer Mechanism for the Promotion of European Cinematographic Works: the Creation of Eurimages

  • 34 European Commission, “Action programme for the European audio-visual media products industry,” COM (...)

16The tensions between the Council of Europe and the EEC caused by the regulations on transfrontier television did not, however, put an end to other forms of cooperation. Another transfer dynamic was active in the audiovisual field at the same time as the negotiations on the TWF Directive were in progress. In 1986, based on DG X’s work, the European Commission created the MEDIA (Measures to Encourage the Development of the Industry of Audiovisual Production) programme, which aimed to develop, promote, and distribute European audiovisual productions.34 The proposed European fund to support the coproduction and distribution of creative cinematographic and audiovisual works (an idea originally put forward to the European Commission in 1985 by French Culture Minister Jack Lang) never materialized within the European Community context because of the impossibility of obtaining unanimity among the member states. Some countries were opposed to any form of European subsidy, arguing that it would be outside the European Community’s prerogatives (Collins 1994: 94-100). The divide that had formed over the TWF Directive resurfaced again here, with the more interventionist countries, such as France and Italy, on the one side and those wishing to limit European Community action, such as the United Kingdom and Germany, on the other. Support for production and distribution therefore remained blocked on the European Community front, and the project was eventually launched through a collaboration between the EEC and the Council of Europe.

  • 35 Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, Resolution 887 (1987) on European Year of Film and TV.
  • 36 Ibid.
  • 37 European Year of Film and TV (EYFTV), 1988: programme of activities, CEUE_PICP-754, HAEU, p. 5.
  • 38 “Simone Veil et l’Europe audiovisuelle,” Le Monde, 22nd January 1989.
  • 39 Statement by François Léotard, culture and communications minister, on the audiovisual production (...)
  • 40 European Year of Film and TV (EYFTV), 1988: programme of activities, CEUE_PICP-754, HAEU, p. 10-12

17The framework for this partnership was the European Year of Film and TV (EYFTV), an initiative launched by the European Council in 1985, whose main objectives were “to promote awareness, particularly among political circles, cinema and television professionals and opinion leaders, of the importance of a strong audiovisual industry, able to compete with the large overseas industries in this field […] [and] to obtain better co-operation within Europe on the financing, production and distribution of audiovisual programmes, and a closer partnership between cinema and television.”35 In 1986, the European Council proposed to involve the Council of Europe in this event.36 Simone Veil, then a member of the EP, was appointed by the European Council as president of the EYFTV, with the deputy secretary general of the Council of Europe, Gaetano Adinolfi, as its vice-president.37 Veil and Adinolfi quickly agreed on the need to use the EYFTV to concretize actions in support of European cinema.38 Furthermore, François Léotard, the new French Culture Minister, appointed in 1986, revived the idea of a support fund for cinematographic production.39 Discussions about the support package formed part of the intense exchanges that took place before and during the EYFTV, such as at the Brussels colloquium on the distribution of European films in March 1988 and the Munich colloquium on cinematographic coproduction in June 1988. These colloquia brought together representatives and delegates from the Council of Europe and the European Community as well as professional associations of producers and distributors.40

  • 41 Michel Berthod, “Compte-rendu de la réunion informelle des ministres européens de la Culture, 27th(...)
  • 42 Michel Berthod, “Note à l’attention de Michel Lummaux, Vice-Président du CDMM du Conseil de l’Euro (...)
  • 43 Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, Resolution (88)15 setting up a European support fund fo (...)
  • 44 Closing of the European Year of Film and TV, 22nd Avril 1989, Fonds Jacques-Delors, JD-854, HAEU, (...)

18During this same period, the EEC’s culture ministers held an informal meeting in Brussels, which Michel Berthod attended with François Léotard.41 As with the negotiations on transfrontier television, Berthod exchanged views at this meeting with his colleagues from the Council of Europe. This time, it was he who informed his colleague from the French ministry of foreign affairs, Michel Lummaux, who sat on the CDMM, that the EEC’s culture ministers were proposing to have the project, initially conceived within the European Community framework, moved to a Council of Europe partial agreement, with the Council of Europe being appointed the fund’s management authority.42 In this partial agreement setup, no member state was obliged to sign the agreement, and the budget was determined on the basis of voluntary contributions from the member states involved. This kind of flexibility was not possible within the European Community framework, where the European Council decisions were taken unanimously and committed all member states. Because the project to support cinematographic coproduction and distribution could not be integrated into the MEDIA programme, its promoters ultimately developed it under the auspices of the Council of Europe. The Eurimages agreement was adopted by the Committee of Ministers in October 198843 and presented as one of the EYFTV’s major achievements at its closing conference.44 In contrast to the broadcasting situation then, Eurimages was the product of a transfer of a European Community project to the Council of Europe. This was an example of a “variable geometry Europe,” where European Community member states mobilized in another organizational arena to achieve objectives that were unfeasible at the European Community level (Collins 1994: 130-132).

  • 45 Council of Europe, Cooperation between the Council of Europe and the European Community (January-J (...)

19The case of the audiovisual sector thus reveals the centrality of specialized discussion arenas and exchanges between government delegates in the interorganizational transfer processes between the Council of Europe and the EEC. The institutionalization of cooperation between these two organizations, which the Council of Europe had repeatedly called for, stagnated in the 1980s. While an agreement was reached in 1987 to improve cooperation, notably through quadripartite meetings between the Council of Europe (represented by the secretary general and the Council of Ministers’ president) and the EEC (represented by the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council), these meetings were rarely attended in person by the EEC dignitaries and were invariably short and superficial. They were even suspended between 1991 and 1995 (Kolb 2013: 50). Catherine Lalumière, the Council of Europe’s secretary general, presented a rather negative assessment of these meetings in her reports dating between 1989 and 1992: “the Secretary General expressed disappointment that there were only rare examples of projects carried out jointly by the Council of Europe and the European Community as envisaged in the arrangement of 1987.”45

20With the Maastricht Treaty’s entry into force in 1993 and the resulting transformation of the European Community into the European Union (EU), this lack of cooperation at the highest level of governance was absorbed. The transfer mechanisms between the two organizations in the field of culture were transformed in the wake of a major development, namely the EU’s acquisition of cultural competences.

2. After Maastricht: an Intensification of Transfers Between the Council of Europe and the EU to Promote the Development and Institutionalization of Cultural Action within the EU

21Institutionalizing a posteriori an action that had already been initiated, article 128 of the Maastricht Treaty conferred cultural competences on the EU. These new competences, although limited to a support role as a complement to the member states’ action, encouraged the EU to institutionalize its action in the form of programmes. To do this, the European Commission systematically drew on the Council of Europe’s experience and on its numerous networks of experts, government representatives, and cultural actors. The number of interorganizational transfers thus escalated, facilitated by the circulation of mobile and multipositioned agents at governmental and international levels between local cultural institutions and international organizations and even between EU and Council of Europe institutions.

2. 1. The Integration of Cultural Networks into EU Cultural Policy: a Decisive Transfer

22The Council of Europe inspired a key development in EU cultural policy, namely the gradual establishment of a dialogue with the cultural actors who would go on to become long-term partners of the European institutions. The Council of Europe had initiated and supported the creation of transnational networks representing the various cultural industries and artistic activities throughout the 1980s (Pehn 1999). José Vidal-Beneyto, for example, the organization’s director general of Education, Culture and Sport from 1985 to 1991, set up a number of meetings with actors in the cultural sector between 1986 and 1988 to encourage these intermediaries to establish transnational cultural networks (Weber 1999: 15). These discussions resulted in the creation of the Forum of European Cultural Networks in 1988 under the Council of Europe’s patronage (Weber 1999: 15). In 1989, the organization also encouraged an exchange of ideas among education officials in the cultural sector from different European countries, which led in 1992 to the founding of the European Network of Cultural Management and Policy (ENCATC), now one of the largest cultural policies networks in Europe (Bonniel-Chalier 1999). Through its close collaboration with actors in the field, the Council of Europe had therefore established itself as a catalyst for knowledge, good practice, and transnational exchange or, in short, as a laboratory of ideas (Terrillon-Mackay 2001). Because it was operating on a strictly intergovernmental basis and did not have significant budgetary resources or the ability to produce binding regulations, it had focused its activities on expertise, in other words on the production and dissemination of norms, which ultimately strengthened its partnership with the EU.

23Initially, the European Commission did not appreciate the strategic importance of cultural networks. This was noted by Raymond Weber (1999), José Vidal-Beneyto’s successor at the Council of Europe’s Directorate General for Culture and Heritage:

While the Council of Europe has always recognized the importance of cultural networks as partners in cultural cooperation, this has not been the case with the European Union. The Commission, despite a Resolution of the Council and the culture ministers of November 1991, which stressed “the important role played by cultural organisation networks in cultural cooperation in Europe,” has had real difficulty in recognizing this role that cultural networks can play.

24In his exchanges with the European institutions, Weber regularly called for a better integration of networks.46 This former senior civil servant from Luxembourg exemplified the role that mobile delegates active either simultaneously or successively in the Council of Europe and the European Commission/Union could play as intermediaries. He had been director of the cultural affairs and international cultural relations offices in Luxembourg’s ministry of culture in the second half of the 1980s and had represented it as a delegate both within the Council of Europe’s Council for Cultural Co-operation and at the EEC’s European Council’s meetings on cultural affairs.47 It was common at the time for small states to send the same delegate to both the Council of Europe and the EEC. After a spell as director of Cultural Development and Artistic Creation at UNESCO at the end of the 1980s, he was appointed director general of Culture and Heritage at the Council of Europe in 1991. He thus came to the post with a very good knowledge of the EEC, its mode of governance, and its projects in the cultural field and recognized that this kind of institutional mobility could contribute to the transfer of know-how and norms between the two organizations.48

2. 2. The Increasing Institutionalization of Transfers Facilitated by the Intraorganizational Circulation of Agents at the Highest Level

25In the 1990s, another key mobile agent emerged in the intensification and institutionalization of the partnership between the Council of Europe and the EU, namely Marcelino Oreja. Oreja had been a diplomat and Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister before being elected as secretary general of the Council of Europe in 1984. He went on to become a member of the EP in 1989 and was appointed commissioner for Culture and Audiovisual Policy at the European Commission in 1994. His time at the Council of Europe had coincided exactly with the period of intense regulatory competition in the audiovisual field between the Council of Europe and the EEC. This was reflected in the first speech he gave as secretary general before the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly:

  • 49 Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, 36th ordinary session, Official report, 3rd October 198 (...)

The coexistence in Europe of two institutional systems with a common purpose poses problems. But it would be pointless to take refuge in a chilly attitude of withdrawal: on the contrary, we must face up to the dynamism of the Community by adopting a positive attitude and devising new forms of co-operation.49

  • 50 Interviews with Catherine Lalumière, secretary general of the Council of Europe (1989-1994), 4th D (...)
  • 51 Interview with Jean-Michel Baer, op. cit. ; Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, Cooperation (...)
  • 52 Ibid.
  • 53 Interview with Aristotelis Bouratsis, director of the Audiovisual Policy, Culture, and Sport unit, (...)

26Oreja, who took up his post at the European Commission just as the EU was set to intensify and institutionalize its cultural action, was therefore very aware of the challenges and potentialities of a cooperative partnership between the EU and the Council of Europe. As key figures from both organizations have since pointed out, the appointment of a commissioner with this kind of knowledge of the Council of Europe and the EU greatly facilitated exchanges between the two organizations.50 For example, Weber had already worked with Oreja when he was elected secretary general at the Council of Europe. On several occasions in 1994 and 1995, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Information, Culture, and Education invited members of the Council of Europe, including Weber and members of his institution, to discuss future EU cultural programmes.51 These collaborations were not limited to the European Commission, however, because in 1995, the EP’s Committee on Culture called on these same Council of Europe members for advice when evaluating the cultural programmes put forward by the European Commission.52 The value of the Council of Europe’s expertise was highlighted by Aristotelis Bouratsis, the European Commission official in charge of cultural programmes in the 1990s, who highlighted a difference in administrative cultures: “We at the Commission, we are managers, we are under pressure, we have less time to think. The Council of Europe has the possibility to develop reflections on a larger scale.”53

  • 54 Council of Europe, Cooperation between Council of Europe and European Community (January-July 1991 (...)
  • 55 Council of Europe, Cooperation between Council of Europe and European Union. Report from the secre (...)

27Moreover, while the European Commission consulted the Council of Europe on the development of its cultural programmes, it also, in a logic of reciprocity, began to provide financial support for Council of Europe initiatives. One of these was European Heritage Days, which was launched in 1991 by the Council of Europe at Weber’s instigation and was directly inspired by the French government’s programme launched in 1983.54 The European Commission provided funding for European Heritage Days from 1994 until it was made a joint programme in 1999.55 Bouratsis explained the organization’s interest in such a partnership:

  • 56 Interview with Aristotelis Bouratsis, op. cit.

Our common goal was to highlight the unity of European culture. European culture did not stop at the frontiers of the EC. So it was a way for the EC to support the promotion of European culture at a larger scale. It made Europe visible at a time and in territories in which the EC could not be visible.56

The Council of Europe’s action thus increased the EU’s visibility beyond its geographical limits to the wider European borders of the Council of Europe.

2. 3. Cultural Managers, New “Transfer Agents,” and the Circulation of New Norms: “Interculturality” or “Rehabilitation through Culture”

28With the development of its financial resources and programmes, the European Commission rapidly consolidated its expertise and strengthened its place in the European cultural landscape. This phenomenon was mainly attributable to the fact that it was following the Council of Europe’s advice and increasingly involving local actors and networks in the design and implementation of its cultural policy. We can see this clearly illustrated in the case of one of the EU’s flagship programmes, the European Capitals of Culture, and the key role played in its development by Robert Palmer and GiannaLia Cogliandro-Beyens. These two individuals were not senior national or international officials but cultural management professionals.

  • 57 Robert Palmer’s Curriculum Vitae, available on the UNESCO website [accessed 12th December 2022].

29Robert Palmer began his career as a theatre director and theatre company chairperson. He was appointed director of the Scottish Arts Council in 198057, and, in 1987, was commissioned by the City of Glasgow to oversee preparations for the Glasgow European Capital of Culture festival, which was to take place in 1990 (Patel 2013: 547). Although the programme was still intergovernmental and not Europe-wide, Glasgow marked a turning point for the event, because it highlighted the role of culture in social and economic regeneration at local level (Sassatelli 2012). Its success led to Palmer’s appointment as head of the Culture Department at Glasgow City Council in 1991, where he created and led the Network for Cultural Cities. In 1996, he was selected for the post of director for Brussels’ European Capital of Culture, which was to be held in 2000. He went on to become an influential consultant to the European Commission, leading a research study on the evaluation of several editions of the European Capitals of Culture, which had become a European Union programme in 1999 (Patel 2013: 545-548).

30Like Palmer, GiannaLia Cogliandro-Beyens’s early career was in cultural management, working at European level within the context of the European Capitals of Culture. In preparation for the 2000 edition, which was unique in that nine cities participated simultaneously, she served as secretary general of the Association of the European Cities of Culture of the Year 2000, which had been set up by the European Commission in 1996. She wrote the evaluation report on this edition for the European Commission and acted as a consultant for the organization on a number of occasions.58 By 2003 and now a regular collaborator with various EU bodies, she was appointed secretary general of the ENCATC, which had been created at the Council of Europe’s instigation ten years earlier.59 Her appointment coincided with the relocation of the ENCATC’s head office from Denmark to Brussels (it was first set up in France). This relocation was to concretize and further the ENCATC’s institutional rapprochement with the European Commission, which became a permanent funder of the network in 2001.60

  • 61 Interviews with Raymond Weber and Jean-Michel Baer, op. cit.

31Palmer took his collaboration with the institutional sphere a step further when he joined the Council of Europe as director general of Culture and Heritage in 2006. This marked a significant sociological development in the organization’s management team. In the 1990s, this Directorate General had been run by a former senior Luxembourg government official who had held various positions in international organizations, and now it was headed by a cultural management professional who had begun his career at local level in cultural organizations. This change had an undeniable impact on the normative choices and forms of action promoted. In addition, while both individuals had prior expert knowledge of European Community/EU cultural policies, Weber’s contact with the European Community system had mainly been at the political level, working within the European Council, while Palmer had collaborated closely with the European Commission’s administrative bodies as team leader for the design and implementation of cultural programmes. His knowledge was therefore much more technical and specific, and this was to prove decisive, because the expertise that the EU had built up in cultural matters over the previous decade was becoming an important resource for the Council of Europe.61

  • 62 European Parliament and European Council, Decision No 1855/2006/EC of the European Parliament and (...)
  • 63 Council of Europe, White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue, “Living Together as Equals in Dignity,” (...)
  • 64 Palmer/Rae Associates, European Cities and Capitals of Culture: Study Prepared for the European Co (...)

32Palmer’s arrival at the Council of Europe coincided with the continued institutionalization of its collaboration with the EU. In 2006, the EU formalized joint action with UNESCO and the Council of Europe for the first time in Article 6 of its Culture Programme.62 In the years that followed, the collaborations and transfers of forms of action and norms between the international organizations intensified. This is exemplified by the case of “interculturality.” When he arrived at the Council of Europe, Palmer put the theme of intercultural dialogue high on the Directorate General’s agenda. He had already defended this concept, which aimed at a better integration (particularly within cities) of minorities and migrants, in his capacity as a designer and then consultant to the EU for the European Capitals of Culture (Palmer 2003). He thus became a key actor in the circulation of this concept and its applications in terms of public policy between the Council of Europe and the EU. The Council of Europe was closely involved in the preparations for the 2008 European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (as it had been for the EYFTV two decades earlier). It provided the conceptual basis for the programme with its White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue, which was the product of a broad consultation with member state governments and civil society organizations.63 Following this event, the Council of Europe, in partnership with the EU, which provided financial support, launched the Intercultural Cities network programme, which was similar to the Network of Cultural Cities that Palmer had led in the 1990s. This programme mobilized Palmer’s longstanding conviction, which he had already put into action within the European Capitals of Culture context, that cultural programmes play an essential role at local level in overcoming economic and social problems, particularly in cities.64 This “cultural rehabilitation” objective (Dubois 2003: 23), which targeted minority practices and disadvantaged populations and areas, was clearly expressed in the official programme description:

The Intercultural Cities Programme supports cities and regions in reviewing and adapting their policies through an intercultural lens, and developing comprehensive intercultural strategies to manage diversity as an advantage for the whole society. […] Cities can gain enormously from the entrepreneurship, variety of skills and creativity associated with diversity, provided they adopt policies and practices that facilitate intercultural interaction and inclusion.65

  • 66 Council of Europe, Steering Committee for Culture, 10th plenary session, Strasbourg, 3rd-4th May 2 (...)
  • 67 Interview with Irina Guidikova, head of division for Cultural Policy, Diversity, and Intercultural (...)

33More broadly, Palmer was the main point of contact at the Council of Europe when it came to cooperative action and joint cultural programmes with the EU.66 These partnerships were essential for the Council of Europe, especially from a financial point of view, because they were based on subsidies from the European Commission. Palmer was already very familiar with these subsidies having supported local cultural actors to put together their applications for funding from European institutions for a long time. Following the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, the European Commission funded many Council of Europe initiatives aimed at social integration through culture (Calligaro 2017: 44). This cooperative action reveals the development of a normative divergence between the two organizations, however. The European Commission felt that the Council of Europe’s political and socioeconomic approach to cultural action departed too much from traditional definitions of culture in terms of artistic practices and the production of cultural goods (Calligaro 2017: 44). It did not therefore renew its funding for the Intercultural Cities programme in 2011, arguing that culture, understood as “artistic activities,” was not sufficiently present in the project, which centred on social cohesion and the integration of migrants and minorities.67

34In their institutional posts, key figures like Palmer and Cogliandro-Beyens were therefore able to draw on their backgrounds as cultural programme and network managers to facilitate the European Commission’s adoption of an approach that was based on a more intense cooperation with professionals in the cultural sector, which saw it progressively anchor its cultural policy in networks established by the Council of Europe (Autissier 2005: 339-345). With the EU resisting a more social and political approach to culture, however, there were limits to the transfer of norms between the two organizations.

Conclusion

35This exploration of the exchanges that took place between the Council of Europe and the European Community/Union reveals both a strong continuity and diversity in the modalities of interorganizational transfer. First of all, the Council of Europe retained its long-term role as a laboratory of ideas in cultural matters for the European Community/Union. It was a key model for launching cultural action within the European Community in the 1970s and 1980s and remained a crucial partner in institutionalizing cultural action within the EU in the 1990s and 2000s. However, our case studies reveal that these transfers could have very different motivations, operating modes, and outcomes. For example, in the case of the audiovisual sector, the transfers between the convention on transfrontier television and the TWF Directive had the effect of curbing the interventionist aspirations within the European Community. By contrast, the transfer of the project to support cinematographic coproduction to the Council of Europe during this same period concretized active support for European artistic creativity. As an advisor to the EU for the development of its cultural programmes, the Council of Europe stressed the need to involve the cultural networks it had helped to create, thus inviting the European institutions to make use of its own work. In addition, it was, in many cases, acting as a partner when it implemented common objectives or projects funded by the EU. It was often therefore an active promoter of these transfers. Because its financial means were much more limited and its regulations less binding, any transfer of its norms to European Community/Union policies was in fact a way of getting them deployed on a larger scale and increasing their potential impact.

36The progressive institutionalization of interrelations transformed the transfer modalities. In the 1980s, when relations between the Council of Europe and the European Community were only very weakly institutionalized, negotiations at the intergovernmental level played a major role. The transfer agents during this period were therefore essentially senior officials mandated by their governments. These individuals facilitated the circulation of norms from one institutional arena to another through their informal exchanges on the margins of negotiations. In the 1990s and 2000s, although agreements were put in place to formalize the circulation of norms and practices so that they could pass through official channels, it was the multipositioning of government delegates, such as Raymond Weber, and the mobility of some very high-level agents between the Council of Europe and the EU, such as Marcelino Oreja, or between the cultural management and institutional spheres, such as Robert Palmer, that opened up key channels for the transfer of norms and practices between the two organizations. The institutional mobility of former cultural managers also led to the establishment of regular partnerships between the EU and networks closely linked to the Council of Europe. Furthermore, the socioprofessional profile and background of these various transfer agents impacted the norms and practices that were transferred according to whether the knowledge and experience they brought was more political and diplomatic or more practical and administrative.

37Since 2010, notably in response to significant budgetary difficulties, the Council of Europe has undergone a major reform and now focuses its work on three priority areas: human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Culture and heritage, which were among its original core competences, are now subordinate to the objectives of democratic governance. This has led to a substantial reduction in its activities in the cultural domain. This gradual abandonment of certain cultural themes can be linked to the expansion of EU cultural policy, which now has ongoing programmes in the heritage, artistic creation, and cultural industries sectors as well as an increased budget and a vast network of intermediaries in the cultural sector (principally based on the networks established by the Council of Europe). The Council of Europe’s normative creativity in this area today seems to be rooted in its reflections on the political and social utility of culture, in particular on the use of culture in the defence of fundamental rights and the protection of minorities (Calligaro 2017: 43-44). The EU, however, still seems reluctant to extend its approach to culture in this direction, revealing an ongoing divergence between the two organizations in terms of their norms and public policies.

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Annexe

 

Appendix 1. Eurimages: A programme that resulted from a transfer dynamic between the European Community and the Council of Europe

“Eurimages is the cultural support fund of the Council of Europe. Established in 1989, it currently numbers 38 of the 46 member states of the Strasbourg-based Organisation, plus Canada.

Eurimages promotes independent filmmaking by providing financial support to feature-length films, animation and documentary films. In doing so, it encourages co-operation between professionals established in different countries.

Eurimages has a total annual budget of approximately €27.5 million. This financial envelope derives essentially from the contributions of the member states as well as returns on the loans granted.

Eurimages has three support schemes: feature film co-production, the promotion of co-production and exhibition.

Eurimages has also adopted a strategy to promote gender equality & diversity and sustainability in the film industry.”

Source: Council of Europe website.

Appendix 2. List of institutions and their administrative divisions

Council of Europe

Steering Committee on the Mass Media

Council for Cultural Co-operation

Directorate General for Education, Culture, and Sport

Directorate General for Culture and Heritage

European Economic Community

Directorate General for Internal Market (DG III)

Directorate General for Information and Culture (DG X)

Appendix 3. List of acronyms

CDMM: Steering Committee on the Mass Media (Comité Directeur sur les Moyens de Communications de Masse)

EYFTV: European Year of Film and TV

EEC: European Economic Community

ENCATC: European Network of Cultural Management and Policy

EP: European Parliament

EU: European Union

NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

OSCE: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

TWF: Television without Frontiers

UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

WHO: World Health Organization

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Notes

1 Acronyms are listed in Appendix 3.

2 The European Community (officially “European Communities,” which comprised the European Economic Community, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Community) preceded the European Union, which was established when the Maastricht Treaty entered into force in 1993 incorporating the European Community as its first pillar. The term “European Community/Union” is used here in non-time-specific references to the entities in place pre- and post-Maastricht.

3 Council of Europe, Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 4 November 1950.

4 Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, Working documents, 17th May 1979.

5 Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, Recommendation 926 (1981); Conseil de l’Europe, comité des Ministres, 70e session, 29 avril 1982, Droits de propriété intellectuelle et distribution par câble de programmes de télévision, Conseil de l’Europe, dossiers sur les Mass Media, no 5-1983.

6 EP, Working documents 1981-82, Document 1–1013/81, 23rd February 1982.

7 EP, Working documents 1981-82, op.cit.

8 European Commission, Television without Frontiers: Green Paper on the Establishment of the Common Market for Broadcasting, especially by Satellite and Cable, COM(84) 300 final, 14th June 1984.

9 European Commission, Programme of the Commission for 1985, 12th March 1985, Bulletin of the European Communities, Supplement 4/85, p. 52.

10 European Commission, White Paper on “Completing the Common Market,” COM(85) 310 final, points 115-117, p. 30.

11 EP, Working documents 1985-86, Document A2–75/85, 5 July 1985.

12 Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, 36th ordinary session, Official report, 3rd October 1984, Marcelino Oreja’s speech, p. 582.

13 Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, Resolution (85)5, Appendix II, 1985, p. 20.

14 European Commission, COM(84)300 final/Part 2, 14 June 1984; European Commission, COM(86)146 final, Bulletin of the European Communities, Supplement 5/86.

15 Agence Europe no 2934, 20th March 1986.

16 European Council, Groupe de travail ad hoc sur les questions économiques (radiodiffusion) les 2, 19 et 20 juin 1986, 31 octobre 1986, 14 et 15 mai 1987, CM2, CEE,1.858.17, Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU).

17 Council of Europe, Rapport du Comité Directeur sur les moyens de communication de masse relatif à l’audiovisuel et au cinéma, 3rd May 1986, 19920214/19, Archives Nationales de France (ANF).

18 Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, CM(86) 255, 11.

19 Official Journal of the European Communities, no C110, 27th April 1988, 0.3-21.

20 Agence Europe, no 4714, 14th February 1988, p. 9.

21 Council of Europe, Comité Directeur sur les Moyens de communications de masse (CDMM): rapport du comité directeur (1988), 19920214/20, ANF.

22 “Réunion informelle des ministres européens chargés de la politique des communications de masse, Vienne, 12-13/04/88: programme de la réunion, délégation française,” 19920214/21, ANF.

23 “Activités de Bernard Blin, avant sa nomination comme chef de bureau,” Premier ministre, service juridique et technique de l’Information, bureau des Affaires internationales, SJTI, politique audiovisuelle extérieure, 20010002/3, ANF.

24 “Radiodiffusion (Télévision sans frontière) et élaboration de directives,” dossier 521. 5 R, 19900634/206, SGCI 10494, ANF.

25 “Michel Berthod, nouvelle vigie du Moulin du Roc,” La Nouvelle République, 17 February 2015 [accessed on 12th December 2022].

26 Ministère délégué à la Communication, dossiers de Michel Berthod, chargé de mission pour les affaires européennes et internationales, 1987-1991, 19920614/1-19920614/18, ANF.

27 Michel Lummaux, “Note à l’attention de Monsieur Berthod. Réunion jointe du Comité Directeur sur les moyens de communication de masse, 25 février 1988, Strasbourg,” 3rd March 1988; Bernard Blin, “Note sur la réunion informelle des ministres européens sur la politique des communications de masse. Vienne 12-13 avril 1988. Projet de Convention européenne,” 14th April 1988; Telex from Bernard Blin to Michel Berthod, “Conseil de l’Europe, 421e réunion des délégués des ministres. Projet de Convention européenne sur la télévision transfrontière, 7 novembre 1988, Strasbourg,” 8th November 1988, 19920214/21, ANF.

28 Bernard Blin, “Note sur la réunion informelle des ministres européens sur la politique des communications de masse. Vienne 12-13 avril 1988. Projet de Convention européenne,” 14th April 1988, 19920214/21, ANF. Translated from French.

29 Telex from Bernard Blin to Michel Berthod, “Projet de Convention relatif à la télévision sans frontière,” 16th September 1988, 19920214/22, ANF.

30 Letter from Jacques Delors to Jacques Santer, 10th September 1988, 19900634/206, SGCI 10494, ANF. Translated from French.

31 European Council, Conclusions of the European Council of Rhodes (2nd-3rd December 1988), Bulletin of the European Communities, 12/1988, p. 10.

32 Council of Europe, Treaty no 132, 5th May 1989; European Community, European Council, Official Journal of the European Communities, L 298, 17th October 1989, p. 23-30.

33 European Council, Directive 89/552/EEC of 3rd October 1989 on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by Law, Regulation or Administrative Action in Member States concerning the pursuit of television broadcasting activities.

34 European Commission, “Action programme for the European audio-visual media products industry,” COM(86)255 final, 26th April 1986.

35 Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, Resolution 887 (1987) on European Year of Film and TV.

36 Ibid.

37 European Year of Film and TV (EYFTV), 1988: programme of activities, CEUE_PICP-754, HAEU, p. 5.

38 “Simone Veil et l’Europe audiovisuelle,” Le Monde, 22nd January 1989.

39 Statement by François Léotard, culture and communications minister, on the audiovisual production situation, Paris, 16th March 1988.

40 European Year of Film and TV (EYFTV), 1988: programme of activities, CEUE_PICP-754, HAEU, p. 10-12.

41 Michel Berthod, “Compte-rendu de la réunion informelle des ministres européens de la Culture, 27th mai 1988 à Bruxelles,” 19920614/7, ANF.

42 Michel Berthod, “Note à l’attention de Michel Lummaux, Vice-Président du CDMM du Conseil de l’Europe. Fonds de soutien à la coproduction cinématographique,” 28th May 1988, 19920614/7, ANF.

43 Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, Resolution (88)15 setting up a European support fund for the co-production and distribution of creative cinematographic and audiovisual works (“Eurimages”), 26th October 1988. CM 88(164).

44 Closing of the European Year of Film and TV, 22nd Avril 1989, Fonds Jacques-Delors, JD-854, HAEU, p. 17.

45 Council of Europe, Cooperation between the Council of Europe and the European Community (January-July 1991). Secretary General Catherine Lalumière’s report, CM(91)140, p. 10; see also reports (CM(90)2), (CM(90)136), and (CM(91)5).

46 Interview with Raymond Weber, director general of Culture and Heritage at the Council of Europe (1991-2001), 3rd November 2014.

47 “Nouveau directeur pour Lux-Development SA”, Paperjam, 22 July 2003 [accessed on 12th December 2022].

48 Interview with Raymond Weber, op. cit.

49 Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, 36th ordinary session, Official report, 3rd October 1984, Marcelino Oreja’s speech, p. 582.

50 Interviews with Catherine Lalumière, secretary general of the Council of Europe (1989-1994), 4th December 2014, with Jean-Michel Baer, director for Cultural Action and Audiovisual Policy, DG X, European Commission (1994-2003), 31st October 2014, and with Raymond Weber, op. cit.

51 Interview with Jean-Michel Baer, op. cit. ; Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, Cooperation between Council of Europe and European Community (August-December 1995). Report from the secretary general, CM(96)41, p. 27.

52 Ibid.

53 Interview with Aristotelis Bouratsis, director of the Audiovisual Policy, Culture, and Sport unit, DG X, European Commission (1994-2000), 6th November 2014.

54 Council of Europe, Cooperation between Council of Europe and European Community (January-July 1991). Report from the secretary general, CM(91)140, p. 23-24.

55 Council of Europe, Cooperation between Council of Europe and European Union. Report from the secretary general (August-December 1999), CM(99)32.

56 Interview with Aristotelis Bouratsis, op. cit.

57 Robert Palmer’s Curriculum Vitae, available on the UNESCO website [accessed 12th December 2022].

58 visit.brussels [accessed on 30th March 2021].

59 ENCATC website [accessed on 30th March 2021].

60 Ibid.

61 Interviews with Raymond Weber and Jean-Michel Baer, op. cit.

62 European Parliament and European Council, Decision No 1855/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 establishing the Culture Programme (2007 to 2013).

63 Council of Europe, White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue, “Living Together as Equals in Dignity,” launched by the Council of Europe Ministers of Foreign Affairs at their 118th Ministerial Session, Strasbourg, 7th May 2008.

64 Palmer/Rae Associates, European Cities and Capitals of Culture: Study Prepared for the European Commission, Brussels, 2004, p. 23.

65 Council of Europe website [accessed 12th December 2022].

66 Council of Europe, Steering Committee for Culture, 10th plenary session, Strasbourg, 3rd-4th May 2011, CDCULT(2011)18, 30th May 2011, p. 2.

67 Interview with Irina Guidikova, head of division for Cultural Policy, Diversity, and Intercultural Dialogue at the Council of Europe (2013-2019), Council of Europe, 6 February 2014.

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Oriane Calligaro, « Agents and Impacts of Interorganizational Transfers between the Council of Europe and the European Union in the Area of Cultural Policy »Biens Symboliques / Symbolic Goods [En ligne], 13 | 2023, mis en ligne le 19 décembre 2023, consulté le 21 mars 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/bssg/3433 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/bssg.3433

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Oriane Calligaro

Senior Lecturer of political science, École Européenne de Sciences Politiques et Sociales (ESPOL), Université Catholique de Lille, College of Europe (Bruges)

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