During this debate Rod Fisher will share his research  on an  analyse of whether there was evidence of a paradigm shift in EU Member States cultural relations with third countries away from traditional cultural diplomacy policies to more strategically focused international cultural co-operation (i.e. policies that were less encumbered by foreign policy agendas). He will focus especially on relations with industrialised countries and growing economies in North America, Latin America and Asia, plus the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood Partnership.

He will draw attention to those EU countries where a paradigm shift had taken place (e.g. Austria, Germany and Slovenia), those which appeared to have both cultural diplomacy and more genuine cultural co-operation policies (e.g. Finland, Netherlands and the UK), and those where policy shifts were being actively discussed (e.g. France) or were aspirational (e.g. Romania).

Rod will also identify trends in cultural diplomacy and international cultural co-operation. These included: a greater willingness on the part of national cultural institutes (NCIs) to co-operate and the emergence of EUNIC; a shift from bilateral to multilateral cultural agreements by some countries, and from cultural diplomacy to cultural relations and mutuality; and the interest of EU Member States to co-operate with accession/pre-accession states, which often tended to wane once they had joined.  Mention will be made of the cultural relations of some countries which have been designated to ‘mend fences’ and restore trust for obvious political reasons. In addition there will be reference to the growth of the importance of the creative industries which has both accelerated interest by governments in the export of their culture and provided them with opportunities to ‘brand’ themselves in the process – trade interests are interestingly linked to foreign ones.

Rod will share his conclusions from this research and there will be time to ask questions.

Presentation Rod Fisher International Intelligence on Culture
Chair Gerald Lidstone