Aims & Policies

"If I could start again, I'd start with culture"
Jean Monnet, founder of the European Union

To fully promote all sponsors in accordance with their financial and
cultural aims and intentions

To campaign for the establishment of an EU Arts Council after 2020,
with a budget vastly greater than the present Culture fund's annual 400m
euros. From 2014, the EU is proposing a budget of 1.8bn€ for a
"Creative Europe" programme, but 900m euros of this will go to audio-
visual and cinema, leaving only 500m€ for "culture" as presently
defined by the Culture fund, which is not much of an increase. The EU
has always been a predominently economic institution, and the amount
of money it presently spends on culture is radically inadequate. The Arts
Council Of England has more money per year for one country than the
Culture fund has for 27. For culture to fully provide the unifying European
role it could, EU culture funds have to be radically increased, and the money
is there, whatever the economic climate. It is only a question of priorities. At
the moment, twenty European governments are funding the CERN particle
accelerator to the tune of 664m euros per year! Why? What good does it do?
All the quantum physicists at CERN have discovered in 2011 is that Einstein's
Theory Of Relativity could well be wrong. And as another example, nineteen
European governments currently fund the European Space Agency and its
ridiculous plans for a manned space flight to Mars, at a staggering cost of
3.99bn€ per year. Such twin lunacies must stop, and the European
cultural sector should be the beneficiary. To negotiate a starting point, an
EU Arts Council would need funding of at least 10bn€ per year, which
in the overall Brussels scheme of things remains very little. So how about more?

To support and proselytise the 1957 EU founding Treaty Of Rome clause
for "an ever closer union" of free European peoples.

To act by, promote and reflect the values of the social market
economically, and liberal democracy politically, culturally and artistically.

To promote the cultural and strategic integrity of a Europe free from
undue American influence. This is particularly relevant to the development
of broad support for common EU foreign and defence policies. The USA
has had undue influence in Europe ever since 1917, and that is quite long
enough.

To develop this web site in as many European languages as can be
funded. Cultural Europe is bigger than the EU's political Europe of 27
languages, since it also includes Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine and European
Russia, that is 31 languages in all.