The Minister of Culture, Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, appeared today before the Committee on Culture of the European Parliament to present the main lines of action of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union in the cultural sphere, which focuses primarily on three priority areas: nurturing cultural potential in order to build local and regional areas, culture as a factor strengthening economic growth and social cohesion, and develop and disseminate digital cultural content.

"Placing culture among the priorities of the European agenda will contribute not only to accelerating economic recovery and job creation, but also strengthening citizenship and will also make a stronger European project," said the Culture Minister during her intervention. She also stressed the importance of ensuring cultural diversity, to uphold all European languages so that every European citizen can contact the institutions of the Union in their mother tongue.


1st Priority: Leveraging cultural potential in order to build local and regional areas 
The community initiative, the European Heritage Label, initially promoted by France and Spain, will be translated into a legislative proposal from the Commission of Culture during the Spanish Presidency of the EU. The main objectives of this initiative are to promote European identity and citizen participation in the construction of Europe, promote Europe's cultural heritage and sustainable development through cultural tourism.

The Minister has announced that she will be at the next Council of Ministers of Culture to be held on 11 and 12 May and has expressed her commitment follow progress of this bill. The protection and promotion of European cultural heritage will also be the basic objective of the expert conference to be held in the city of Caceres, declared European Heritage from 19 to 21 April.


2nd priority: Strengthening culture as a factor for economic growth and social cohesion
During her speech, Gonzalez-Sinde highlighted the contribution of cultural and creative industries to employment generation and economic growth, as announced, the Spanish Presidency intends to contribute to its momentum and seize opportunities that the industry offers to consolidate culture as a factor in economic and social cohesion.

In this sense she recalled the upcoming celebration of the Second European Forum on Economy and Culture and the informal meeting of Culture Ministers that will also discuss the future Green Paper on Cultural Industries, whose formal presentation is scheduled to take place in the Council of Ministers of Culture on 10 and 11 May.

3rd priority: Development and dissemination of cultural content of a digital nature
The third priority of the Spanish Presidency in the cultural field is to develop and disseminate digital cultural content in order to not only bring about a chnage in European culture, but to lead this change. During her speech the Minister has detailed as encouraging the spread of digitization of our cultural heritage for dissemination, promoting cultural creation in networks, and applying digital technologies to  European cultural services.

The third priority will be discussed in depth in the Council of Ministers of Culture in May through a workshop on digitization of cultural content, digital libraries and copyright to be held on 12 and 13 May in Madrid.

Regarding the future of the European digital library Europeana, the Spanish Presidency of the Council will adopt conclusions to agree that Europeana evolve into a community initiative. The goal is to generate a greater effort to digitize, achieve greater financial stability and provide digital library management structures possibilities ro better make available digitized European heritage.

Finally, the Spanish Presidency of the European Union in the field of development and dissemination of digital content, will address the debate on the challenge of integrating digital technologies in the dissemination and exhibition of cinema in Europe. On 5 and 6 March in Barcelona a seminar will take place on the impact of digital technology on film exhibition, which aims to reflect on how this transformation will affect the future of cinema.

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