Doc. 8229

6 October 1998

Promotion of the Council of Europe’s cultural routes and establishment of a gothic cathedrals and abbeys route

Motion for a recommendation

presented by MM. Lemoine, Debarge, Hoeffel and others

This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only the members who have signed it

      The Council of Europe is the only European co-operation organisation that is fully empowered, under the terms of Article 1 of its Statute, to take action in the cultural sphere, one of the areas in which European Union action is most strictly subject to the subsidiarity principle.

      From the outset, the Council of Europe has exercised this lofty competence out of a concern to develop mutual respect and unity between different aspects of European culture, in a region where an ancient and glorious civilisation had almost foundered on the rocks of hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and ultimately war.

      Europe was finally reunited with the fall of the Berlin Wall and, turning its back on totalitarian systems whose impact was particularly significant in the cultural sphere, can at last lay claim to its diversity as a source of enrichment, and to the many links between different focal points of a common civilisation.

      Council of Europe instruments to promote European culture obviously include the European Cultural Convention and several conventions on heritage conservation. One of the most original, and as yet overlooked, instruments is the Council of Europe cultural routes.

      As we are all aware, Unesco’s registration of certain monuments, urban areas and natural sites as elements of a world heritage has met with great success.

Council of Europe member states have all the tools they need to promote awareness and conservation of the sites and monuments that constitute the rich heritage of the Old World; they should take the Unesco list as a model, but build on it by emphasising the ties between elements of a common culture, which transcend national boundaries.

      Through their diversity, the few Council of Europe cultural routes already set up have demonstrated the ancient bonds that gradually fashioned our civilisation: the major archaeological sites of the Bronze Age, the pilgrim ways of Santiago de Compostela and the Baroque routes. These initiatives are still rather patchy, however, and there is insufficient public awareness of them in the organisation’s 40 member states.

      The cultural routes must be taken a stage further:

-        firstly, it is important to ensure more effective promotion of the sites included and better organisation of the networks to which they belong;

-       secondly, for each historical period and aesthetic category, all elements found throughout the Old World should consistently be added to the current list.

      The Assembly consequently recommends that the Committee of Ministers:

1.       further develop the European cultural routes:

i.       by devising a standard sign for designated sites, containing the Council of Europe logo, the name of the monument and the cultural route to which it belongs, with, where appropriate, information about the monument (construction dates, the names of the architects, sculptors, painters, glassworkers and so on having helped to decorate it, sponsors, historic events, etc.);

ii.       by holding a competition, in all Council of Europe member states, to design this sign;

iii.       by issuing leaflets that present each route, containing a clear map with the locations of the various monuments included, as well as, where appropriate, openings hours and conditions of access, particularly for disabled people, and events such as concerts, festivals, son et lumière shows and so on;

iv.       by producing an attractively illustrated book containing information on these routes;

v.       by assisting and consulting the relevant political and administrative bodies with a view to co-ordinating routes so that they form a genuine network for exchanges and co-operation in order to foster the conservation and enhancement of these elements of European culture;

vi.       by encouraging research and pooling of knowledge between specialists and historians of art and architecture, particularly on the unifying themes conveyed by the routes, for example by means of public colloquies;

vii.       by providing Council of Europe support for such exchanges and publications, including the production of video cassettes and video discs;

2.       set up a Gothic Cathedrals Route - connecting Segovia with Chartres and Saint-Denis; Batalha with Strasbourg; Rhodes and Nicosia with Prague; Florence and Milan with Liège, Mechelen, Ulm, Cologne and Lübeck; and Krakow, Vienna and Vilnius with York and Dublin - so as to demonstrate the historic cultural exchanges that have shaped European civilisation and resulted in some of its most prized monuments;

3.       also consider setting up cultural routes linking prehistoric sites and decorated caves; sites bearing the marks of Greek and then Byzantine civilisation; Roman monuments; fortresses, medieval cities, Romanesque churches and convents; synagogues and Jewish cemeteries; sites of Islamic art; Renaissance, 17th- and 18th-century castles and town halls; historicist architecture or “art nouveau” and the city centres rebuilt in the 1920s; historic gardens; or separate routes on listed civic buildings such as theatres, hospitals, stock exchanges, markets and railway stations; listed industrial buildings, spa towns and thermal facilities; a route should also be set up to signpost and link historic organs;

4.       encourage the setting-up of a network of sites designed to conserve elements of European culture, by incorporating them into specific cultural routes; such sites might include technical museums, such as postal museums, clock and watch-making museums, railway and automobile transport museums, decorative arts and textile museums; historical and/or military museums, naval museums and historic lighthouses, ports and boats; centres for the preservation of farming techniques; open-air museums presenting particular types of housing; and so on;

5.       set up European cultural routes that link the shrines of science, visual arts, music and literature, indicating, for example, places where major European artists lived and worked. The Council of Europe could thus promote routes on Erasmus, Copernicus, Descartes, Huygens, Hume and Humboldt; Van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, Velasquez, Rubens, Tiepolo, Ingres and Degas; Voltaire, Goethe, Shelley, Byron, Stendhal, Constant, Heine, Hugo and Turgenev; Mozart, Rossini, Chopin, Liszt, and Wagner; Van Gogh, Hans Arp, Brancusi and Picasso; Joseph Roth, James Joyce and Milosz. Leaflets explaining the various significant sites should be made available to the public at each stage of the route, obviously suggesting other visits but also showing Europeans that these artistic movements disregarded national boundaries;

6.       place particular emphasis on the as yet overlooked heritage resources of central and east European countries, in such a way as to demonstrate the deep cultural unity of the European continent, throughout the ages and regardless of the apparent diversity in forms of aesthetic expression;

7.       prepare reference material for the political and administrative bodies responsible for conservation of historic monuments, explaining:

-       the costs arising from the inclusion of a site or building in a Council of Europe cultural route, particularly the production of the relevant sign;

-       the advantages deriving from the associated publicity, over and above the acknowledgement of affiliation to a common civilisation.

8.       inform the Assembly of developments in connection with the Council of Europe cultural routes by means of a biannual report.

Signed¹:

Lemoine, France, SOC

Debarge, France, SOC

Hoeffel, France, EPP/CD

Aguiar, Portugal, EPP/CD

Alloncle, France, EDG

Antretter, Germany, SOC

Birraux, France, EPP/CD

Blunck, Germany, SOC

Cioni, Italy, SOC

Dias, Portugal, SOC

Durrieu, France, SOC

Ehrmann, France, LDR

Gnaga, Italy, NR

Jeambrun, France, LDR

Jónsson, Iceland, EDG

Lentz-Cornette, Luxembourg, EPP/CD

Luís, Portugal, SOC

Martelli, Italy, EDG

Maximus, Belgium, SOC

Mitterrand, France SOC

Mota Amaral, Portugal, EPP/CD

Pereira Marques, Portugal, SOC

Robol, Italy, EPP/CD

Roseta, Portugal, EPP/CD

Schreiner, France, EDG

Staes, Belgium, EPP/CD

Terborg, Germany, SOC

Urbain, Belgium, SOC

Valkeniers, Belgium, LDR

Vella, Malta, EPP/CD

¹        SOC: Socialist Group

      EPP/CD: Group of the European People’s Party

      EDG: European Democratic and Reformers Group

LDR: Liberal, Democratic and Reformers Group

      UEL: Group of the Unified European Left

      NR: not registered in a group