On behalf of the German EU Presidency, Minister of State Bernd Neumann, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, invited the EU ministers responsible for culture and the media to an informal two-day meeting in Berlin. After making good headway on Monday towards modernizing the Television without Frontiers Directive, the ministers’ discussion today focused on cultural industries.
The ministers agreed on a series of proposals presented by Minister of State Neumann for a future strategy to promote cultural industries in the coming years. Minister of State Neumann stressed, “The ministers of culture in Europe are called upon to agree on a common strategy for developing cultural industries, which are a significant engine of growth in Europe. Cultural industries already employ more people than the automobile industry and are growing twice as fast as the rest of the economy.”
Ján Figel´, EU Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, highlighted the role culture plays for economic growth in Europe and explained, “The Commission plans to adopt a communication on culture in the next few weeks. This communication is intended to underscore the economic significance of culture in achieving the aims of the Lisbon Agenda and to locate it within a larger strategy describing the multi-faceted contribution of culture to the programme of European integration.”
