mr president i am coming back to you with some concrete next steps on the report on the role of culture in the eu's external actions that we talked about this morning
i want to start with a quote from a hungarian diplomat in the united states mr simonyi who said that rock and roll culturally speaking was a decisive element in loosening up communist societies and bringing them closer to the world of freedom
when we look in particular at today's uprisings of the young generation in north africa and the middle east we can see that today an open internet is that decisive element for moving into the world of freedom
we need an internet freedom strategy to facilitate free expression press freedom access to information and access to cultural and educational content
this is a priority but there are many more concrete suggestions in the report for which the foundations are already laid down in both the lisbon treaty and the ratification of the unesco conventions
they now need practical implementation
the external action service should coordinate the work of different directorates-general and create a directorate-general for cultural and digital diplomacy
eeas staff should be trained and a cultural attaché is needed in each eu representation
there needs to be coordination streamlining and mainstreaming through an interinstitutional taskforce which should report back to the european parliament
we ask the commission to adopt a green paper in twenty eleven followed by a communication on a strategy for cultural cooperation in the eu's external actions
we also call for capacity-building through the funding of initiatives independent of government and we want to promote eu cultural activities in the rest of the world on line also
existing programmes such as the european neighbourhood policy and the european instrument for democracy and human rights have cultural components which need to be coordinated and strategically deployed
we also need to protect and promote cultural heritage such as through the blue shield programme and we need to engage in cultural policy dialogues with third countries
human rights should be respected and cultural arguments can never be used to justify violations of human rights
i would recommend that colleagues read the report
i think that this debate shows that we need many more discussions on culture in the eu
