COMMISSION LEAVES ECA WITHOUT FUNDS AGAIN
ECA PROTESTS UNACCEPTABLE “EXPERT” COMMENT
The Education Audiovisual & Culture Executive Agency of the European Commission informed the European Council of Artists that the ECA was not among the organisations funded by the Commission in 2007. This time an “expert” comment was supposed to make the decision more transparent. In the eyes of the Executive Committee, however, this comment shows a complete lack of understanding and/or ignorance of the so-called independent experts. Here is the letter of protest by the EC:
It is with regret that the European Council of Artists has received the decision of the Commission Agency not to fund our European network for 2007. The comments of your “experts” leave us in a state of disbelief. The short paragraph illustrates the poor quality of the evaluation process employed and a complete lack of understanding on the part of these people who have not, it would seem, read our application.
"The main activity of the organisation is to act for artists in different domains concerning European artists' condition and it has an important role in disseminating EU-decisions concerning artists.”
Never have we been an organisation whose role is simply to disseminate EU-decisions concerning artists. We are not an unpaid agency of the European Union whose purpose is to improve the deplorable state of communication between some of the European Union institutions and the professional artists in Europe.
Due to our limited resources we address only those EU decisions (recommendations, directives etc) which will either be strengthened through debate and action on national level – as in the case of the new Parliament report on the social status of the artists – or which have to be addressed because they are problematic for the artists – such as the recent Lévai report on the opening of the online music market to competition between collecting societies. In such cases, the ECA usually cooperates with the legitimate representatives of the European people, the members of the European Parliament.
“However, the European dimension of the project is not achieved and the communication plan is not developed enough to reach a large number of benificiaries. (sic!)”
It is quite scandalous to argue that “the European dimension of the project is not achieved”. Firstly, a European network of professional artists is not a “project”. It is a democratically legitimised representation of hundreds of artists’ associations in 25 European countries. Secondly, how could the European dimension be more convincingly achieved than by regular cooperation among 25 European countries; by organising a major annual European conference on European cultural topics (this year in Sibiu, Romania, European cultural capital 2007, organised in cooperation with the national artists’ umbrella ANUC and subsidised by the Romanian government); by regularly disseminating electronic newsletters to hundreds of thousands of artists via their associations; by developing initiatives concerning truly European topics such as protecting the free expression of artists from threats such as the European Arrest Warrant and others relating to the mobility of artists. How can your experts claim that we do not “…reach a large number of beneficiaries”?
“…that is why it should contain more details and information about future plans and development. The organisation restarted its activities in 2006 and it is difficult to preview which kind of goals it will attain."
We did not restart our activities in 2006. We have never stopped them. It is true that due to the late diagnoses of our then General Secretary’s slowly developing Alzheimer’s Disease, the ECA had to overcome difficult times. During this time too, it was necessary to replace a President who was unable to function in the absence of a General Secretary. Despite these difficulties – all of which were resolved in 2005 – ECA has been consistently active for more than a decade. It is ironic that it is only since its consolidation that the ECA has stopped receiving EU funding and support.
The ECA is the only European network of national interdisciplinary artists’ association umbrellas from Iceland to Georgia, Portugal to Finland, Ireland to Romania, and from Malta to Sweden. For ECA it is as difficult as it is for the EU to predict which goals we will attain. We are not project oriented. ECA is constantly working for its members, lobbying and negotiating. Will there, for example, be a European constitution (even if by another name)? Can the EU predict with certainty that it will achieve this goal? Will there be a list of exceptions to the European Arrest Warrant? How can the ECA predict the outcome of its work in this area? If the achievement of goals were the only criterion for granting budgets, not the professional work to attain them, then the European Union would have ceased to exist long ago.
In light of this analysis of your experts’ evaluation of our application, we express our protest against the decision not to fund the ECA in 2006 and again in 2007. Since the turn of the millennium the ECA was represented in the drafting group of the International Network for Cultural Diversity (INCD) that developed and lobbied for the first draft of a convention on cultural diversity, which led to the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The European Union is one of the signatory parties to this convention that came into force in last March. Articles 7.2, 11 and 12, clearly define the obligations of signatories in regard to the artists and the civil society. The Commission’s decision bluntly ignores the provisions of the convention.
We would welcome an early invitation by Commission representatives to start talks towards establishing a fruitful cooperation comparable to the one that we have already established with EU parliamentarians over many years. Artists have and will continue to contribute greatly to the cultural development of Europe. Their representatives should be accepted as partners in the struggle to further develop European perspectives.
ECA PRESENT ALL OVER EUROPE
Despite our financial problems, ECA representatives were present at a number of conferences, meetings and similar activities over the past few months:
- President Ludwig Laher and Michael Burke attended an informal meeting of various creative artists’ associations in Dublin in April hosted by Visual Artists Ireland. This was a first step in the discussion process to establish a national umbrella of these associations.
- General Secretary Pia Raug represented ECA and CISAC (the International Confederation of Authors’ and Composers' Societies) at a big Cultural Diversity conference in Essen, Germany, in April, hosted by the German UNESCO Commission. Among the 600 delegates from all over the world there were many civil servants and only few artists.
- Torben Heron represented ECA at the ELIA (European League of Institutes for the Arts) conference in Tallinn in April, co-hosted by the Association of European Conservatoires. Most of the participants were teachers. Several countries' culture ministries were also represented. The topic of the meeting was the Bologna convention that aims to harmonise arts education at university level. ECA entered partnership with ELIA earlier this year in order to monitor developments across the field of arts education, particularly those that arise from the Bologna convention, either positive or negative. ECA is at present addressing cases in Spain, where artists who are successful teachers with long experience and an excellent reputation are not permitted to teach due to lacking traditional academic background.
- Vice-President Simon Pellar represented ECA at the Nordic Cultural Assembly in Visby, Gotland, in May, organised by the Nordic Artists Councils, with guests from the Baltic region and Russian artists' organisations. Simon Pellar found it very important to meet many artists who are not usually present at ECA conferences. He noted that the Nordic reluctance towards Europe reflects objections to the pressure of harmonisation rather than to cooperation.
- President Ludwig Laher was one of the speakers on a panel held on the occasion of a major cultural conference “kultur.macht.europa – europa.macht.kultur” organised in Berlin, Germany, in June, as an event marking the German EU presidency. Laher's topic was networking among artists. He spoke about the importance of ECA in the European integration process as a critical, yet constructive lobbyist.
- Kornelijus Platelis, President of the Lithuanian Association of Artists, was in Strasbourg in June in connection with the plenary adoption of the Gibault report on the social status of the artists by the European Parliament. He used the occasion to talk to several MEPs on behalf of ECA in preparation of the Sibiu Conference.
- On the occasion of the EC-meeting in Bucharest in June Vice-President Narcy Calamatta and Michael Burke had talks with the Romanian Union of Fine Arts and its president Serban Dumitru. The EC had a fruitful meeting with ANUC, our Romanian member, dedicated to the detailed preparation of our congress and conference in September.
ECA CONFERENCE AND CONGRESS IN SIBIU, 28 – 30 SEPT. 07
The ECA Annual Conference Artist, Creativity, Society - Challenges for the Status of the Artist in the Beginning of the 21st Century will take place in Sibiu, Romania, from 28 - 30 September 2007.
The conference is organised in cooperation with our Romanian member ANUC (the National Alliance of Creators' Unions) and supported by the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs of Romania as part of the official Sibiu Cultural Capital of Europe Programme 2007. For the detailed programme and further information, please consult our website (http://www.eca.dk/activities/index) and contact Elisabet Diedrichs (on holiday in late July and early August) at the ECA office in Copenhagen, or Monica Lotreanu at the ANUC office in Bucharest.
ECA APPROACHES LUXEMBOURG TO JOIN
In a letter to several artists’ organisations in Luxembourg ECA President Ludwig Laher referred to the 2007 European cultural capitals Sibiu and Luxembourg. With the ECA 2007 Congress taking place in Sibiu, it would be an excellent opportunity for artists from Luxembourg to form a national umbrella and join ECA this year. An immediate reaction came from SACEM Luxembourg, stating their intention to write to the Ministry of Culture seeking support for organising such an umbrella.
ECA & THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE: LETTER OF THE PRESIDENT
In a letter to Robert Palmer, Council of Europe Director of Culture and Cultural and Natural Heritage, President Ludwig Laher underlined the ECA vision of Europe from Iceland to Georgia and offered ECA’s cooperation. One of the possible cooperation projects would be a conference for artists’ associations in countries from Albania to the Ukraine that are not ECA members yet, with special emphasis on the UNESCO Convention and the “struggle to convince their respective governments to take the dual character of cultural goods and services into account, helping to secure and improve the mobility of artists and art in Europe etc.”
ECA MONITORS ARGUMENT ABOUT PLR DIRECTIVE
At the Nordic Cultural Assembly it was decided to inform European Artists on the conflict between the EU Commission concerning the Danish and Swedish systems of remuneration of writers represented in public libraries. The Commission does not consider these systems to be in accord with its Public Lending Rights (PLR) Directive and threatens Sweden and Denmark with legal proceedings. Sweden and Denmark have answered that their systems should be considered as culture policy schemes, and are now waiting for the Commission’s next step. The ECA has decided to monitor the developments and to place the basic information on the ECA website.
ECA SUPPORTS GIBAULT REPORT
In a short statement the ECA has welcomed the EP’s adoption of the Gibault Report on the status of the artist ”as a significant step towards the recognition of the difficult socio-economic situation of many European artists”. The ECA underlines that on the occasion of the annual ECA Congress in Sibiu in September 2007, the Report will be the focus of a conference and a subsequent ECA position paper on the findings and proposals of the study. You can the Gibault report on this link: http://www.eca.dk/news/gibault.htm
ECA APPEALS FOR DONATIONS FROM MEMBERS AND SYMPATHISERS
Please help us overcome the financial dire straits
in which ECA has found itself due to no fault on its part.
BANK ACCOUNT: Handelsbanken, Solbjergvej 10, DK-2000 FREDERIKSBERG.
IBAN: DK79 7630 000 3000 244, Swift: HANDDKKK
Thanks to all who already showed their solidarity!
The ECA Executive Committee
Ludwig Laher, writer, Austria, President
Narcy Calamatta, actor, Malta, Vice-President
Simon Pellar, translator, Czech Republic, Vice-President
Renate Christin, visual artist, Germany
Franz Ernst, film director, Denmark
Agnes Péter, sculptor, Hungary
Tomo Vran, visual artist, Slovenia
European Council of Artists, Borgergade 111, DK-1300 Copenhagen K, Denmark
phone: +45-35384401, fax: +45-35384417, e-mail: eca@eca.dk, web: www.eca.dk