EUROPEAN CULTURAL SPACE IN THE EUROPEAN CITIES OF CULTURE

ABSTRACT

This article considers the role of European Union (EU) cultural policy within the process of Europeanization. It will trace the development of EU competence on cultural matters in general, and of the flagship programme ‘European City of Culture’ in particular. The latter will be observed both in its overall implementation and in the exceptional edition of 2000, when in order to celebrate the millennium nine cities shared the title, allegedly bringing the European reconfiguration of space into full light. This will show that the minutiae of cultural policy-making are never far removed from far-reaching discourses on European identity. How the gap is overcome, rhetorically and practically, provides the strategic vantage point for analyzing how the creation of a ‘European cultural space’ may be suggesting new ways to think of spatiality in its connection to culture and identity formation.

Keywords:

• cultural policy
• European city of culture
• Europeanization
• identity
• territoriality

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank for their precious comments Jasper Chalcraft, Anna Triandafyllidou and the three anonymous referees.

Notes

¹For the sake of simplicity I will always refer to the EU as an umbrella term containing a plurality of institutions and their developments. When relevant to the analysis, distinctions will be spelled out in the text.

²If we follow Foucault's governmentality approach, it is the very concept of culture in the modern sense that developed at the same time of the concept of police (the etymological root of policy). This coupling lies at the basis of the new relationship between the political institution and individuals (see, e.g., Barnett 2001, following Foucault 1991). Individualization and the need of cultural guidance, provided by collective and institutional breeding, emerged in parallel (Bauman 1996: 19) and their combination crystallised in the imagined community of the nation (Anderson 1983).

³Jack Lang, French Minister of culture in the early 1980s, has been reported saying at a conference in Turin in 1996: ‘It was 1982 […] I said: I think that if he [Monnet] questioned himself today maybe he would start with culture. Since then, the thought has been attributed to him without doubt’ (reported in Mammarella and Cacace 1999: 95).

⁴Jean Monnet did say in his Memoires that what was at stake was ‘a new breed of man […] being born in the institutions of Luxembourg, as though in a laboratory, it was the European spirit which was the fruit of common labour’ (Monnet, quoted in Bellier 1997: 441).

⁵There is of course another institution, the COE, founded in 1949 on a more comprehensive and geographically extended basis. Culture has been at the core or the COE from the beginning, as the European Cultural Convention of 1954 shows. A consultative body, the COE is still a key factor of Europeanization, and has often worked de facto as a think tank for solutions later adopted by the EU (Gordon and Mundy 2001).

⁶This campaign was launched in 1985 and can be conceived as the first implementation of cultural policy. It was at the origin of measures of pervasive symbolic impact such as university exchange programs and the introduction of the Euro-symbols: flag, anthem, a common design for passports (see Bekemans 1993; Pantel 1999; Shore 2000).

⁷For a parallel account of the education policy with a similar relation to identity-building, see Petit (2005). On the Europeanization of the field of education see Soysal (2002).

⁸Studies and positions on European identity abound. Recent critical syntheses of the debate can be found in Kohli (2000), Stråth (2002), and Kantner (2006).

⁹I report here some results of my case-study research on the ECOC programme and its 2000 edition in particular. This adopted fieldwork techniques, ranging from document analysis to informal and formal interviews with people actively involved in the nine ECOC 2000 (both cultural managers and curators of projects), to participant observation of ECOC 2000 meetings and selected events. For full description see Sassatelli (2005).

¹⁰After the first round of one city per Member State (1985–1996), participation was opened to European cities outside the EU and criteria for selection were set (Decision of 12/11/92 of the European Council of Ministers). Another main revision was introduced, following the TEU new legal framework, in 1999: from 2005 the programme becomes an action of DGX within the Culture programme (Decision 1419/1999/EC; now replaced by Decision 1622/2006/EC). The procedures for candidature and selection are redefined, and the sequential nomination among EU countries reintroduced. In the new scheme along with a city from a Member state a city from a ‘third European country’ can be nominated each year. Moreover, a city from one of the enlargement countries is to be nominated in parallel starting in 2009 (Decision 649/2005/EC).

¹¹The EU has covered in average 1 percent of overall budgets, in connection to the realization of ‘European projects’ through international collaboration. However, the European character of projects, as well as of the whole year, is also left to the self-interpretation of the city (Palmer-Rae Associates 2004).

¹²A small but growing body of literature, often concentrating on a particular year of the programme and on issues of urban policies is developing: among others see García (2005), Heikkinen (2000), Keohane (1999), and Richards and Wilson (2004).

¹³The full list of ECOCs is as follows: Athens 1985; Florence 1986; Amsterdam 1987; Berlin 1988; Paris 1989; Glasgow 1990; Dublin 1991; Madrid 1992; Antwerp 1993; Lisbon 1994; Luxembourg 1995; Copenhagen 1996 (first round). Thessaloniki 1997; Stockholm 1998; Weimar1999; for 2000 (special edition): Bergen, Bologna, Brussels, Krakow, Helsinki, Prague, Reykjavik, Santiago de Compostela; Porto and Rotterdam 2001; Bruges and Salamanca 2002; Graz 2003; Genoa and Lille 2004 (end of intergovernmental programme). Cork 2005; Patras 2006; Luxembourg and Sibiu 2007; Liverpool and Stavanger 2008; Linz and Vilnius 2009; Essen, Pécs and Istanbul 2010.