The role we could have as a member state with regards to culture is to be active in the area of neighbourhood policy and reconsider our role in the often stigmatised Balkans. The same feeling is shared in Romania as well. We have the unique chance to build a bridge between the EU and our non-EU European neighbours. Last but not least, we have the unique chance to join and contribute to the union right when the topic of European cultural policy is being approached.

Since, compared with traditional media, youth cultures and related media platforms are far less conditioned by languages and national borders, supporting civic action and creative efforts in this field can prove more effective in terms of cost and effort. This happens to be so, I assume, as there is less prestige and power involved in discussing changes in perspective in this field.

 

Popular culture, while still strongly influenced by American media industry structures, is in reality universal. Rather than fostering provincialism, popular culture encourages interaction. Here, more than any other area, English is the shared international language, but there are all sorts of local and regional varieties of self expression. The mark of the game is shared diversity. And being less class oriented than elite art forms, popular culture makes room for creativity and access. Anyone, irrespective of background, if talented enough, can become a successful football player or rock musician.

On one side, there is turmoil on the funder side, who is making an experiment and flirting with the position of interfering into the structure and the content (to a certain level) of the financed project, which is near to the position of co-curating. On the other side, fundees are those who are getting more open door to influence the general policy of the foundation towards its objectives. Fundees are also getting freedom to shape their own cooperation and predetermined funds with possibilities for further modular increase of funding. Some things within the project are predefined; frameworks are set. Present constellation of things would mean that there is a framework, but there is also space for action and critical reflection, which would require and mean more mutual involvement in others' fields of action. This constellation leads to many questions: Where is the balance of mutual interests between the fundees and the funder? Who is, and under which circumstances, governing who? And we can even go further on: How critical we can be towards the hand that feeds us? Should we bite it or obey it? The space for negotiation should be somewhere in between biting and obeying.