EuroMed Ministerial Meeting on Culture and Cultural Dialogue
(2008 06 06 15:13)
The meeting was organised in Athens under the asupices of the Slovenian Presidency and the Greek Government. Conclusions that were drafted give guidelines for further action and offer a platform to develop dialogue between cultures in the Euro-Mediterranean Basin.
The Ministers supported the Euro-Mediterranean cultural strategy covering cooperation in the field of intercultural dialogue and cultural policy. It was decided that in order to speed up the shaping of the strategy a group of experts on culture would meet regularly until the next ministerial conference.
The participants acknowledged that the cooperation has been successful in many fields of culture. One of the best examples is the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for Dialogue between Cultures, the main objective of which is to encourage intercultural dialogue and strengthen the visibility of the Barcelona Process on the basis of intellectual, cultural, civil and social exchange.
All initiatives that promote multilingualism and translation, the mobility of artists and intellectuals, the expansion of new technologies, the integration of young people and women, consideration of the needs of minorities and cooperation in sports events have been welcomed by the participants. It was concluded that respect for diversity among members of different cultures leads to tolerance and respect for shared values.
On the eve of the plenary session prizes were awarded by the ministers to the winners of the second competition for the EuroMed Journalist Prize for Cultural Dialogue. Four journalists who contributed to promoting respect for diversity received the award, they were - Gideon Levy (Israel), Jamila Zekhnini (Belgium), Verichan Ziflioglu (Turkey) and Uroš Škerl (Slovenia).
More inforamtion is available here.