The Minister of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Dr Vasko Simoniti, today presented to the European Parliament Committee on Culture and Education the programme goals in the field of culture and audiovisual content during Slovenia's Presidency of the EU Council.
In his address he pointed out that goals can be successfully achieved only with close cooperation between the representatives of civil society and all the European institutions, among which the European Parliament has an exceptionally important role. This is why, in its preparations for the Presidency, Slovenia paid particular attention to the positions of the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education.
The Minister highlighted intercultural dialogue as a priority of Slovenia's EU Council Presidency. He described the opening event of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, prepared by Slovenia for the whole Community on 7 and 8 January in Ljubljana; the event was also attended by EP President Dr Hans-Gert Pöttering, who delivered an opening address. The Minister briefly mentioned other events on the subject of intercultural dialogue to be organised by Slovenia during its Presidency. “Intercultural dialogue will also pervade our work at the EU Council Culture Committee. Specifically, the Presidency will frame initial proposals for Council decisions, to be adopted at the meeting in May, on developing the intercultural skills of citizens through cultural projects, raising awareness of our common heritage, encouraging multilingualism, and eliminating obstacles to artists' mobility,” he said.
He further spoke about the plans of the Slovenian Presidency regarding the drafting of the Council Work Plan in the field of culture for the next three years and expressed his belief that the Member States would pay careful attention to determining the common priorities which would be the basis for the Council's future work.
On the audiovisual field, he expressed his conviction that the successful cooperation between the Committee and the EU Council when adopting the Directive on Audiovisual Media Services would continue when examining the Communication on Media Literacy and the Communication on Creative Content Online, which were recently issued by the Commission. At this point, he mentioned the conference on the subject, which would take place in Slovenia in June.
