Navracsics: Culture engine of European identity

Budapest, January 27 (MTI) – Culture is a powerful engine of European identity and also one of the most important elements of economic development, European commissioner Tibor Navracsics said at a conference of the European cultural community, civil society and researchers in Budapest on Friday.

“We must learn to protect our European cultural heritage because we will lose direction without it in a fast-changing world,” the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport said during the opening of the event dubbed Beyond the Obvious – Europe, Quo Vadis?

“Europe has always been a cultural project: the continent has become fragmented in terms of politics and economy many times before but never in terms of culture. Culture is a strategic space and talking about the future of Europe is only possible in a cultural framework,” he insisted during a panel discussion with the participation of Robert Manchin, head of conference organiser Culture Action Europe.

Europe is developing in a direction defined by the people who live in it and a consensus could only be developed with the involvement of the participants of culture, Navracsics said. The dynamics of European integration could boost the efforts to preserve the cultural heritage of the continent, he added.

The European year of cultural heritage will be marked in 2018 and it will be an opportunity to show that European and national cultures are inseparable, the commissioner said.

Source: MTI