Culture in EU External Relations Conference
From 13-14 May 2008 the international conference New Paradigms, New Models - Culture in EU External Relations was held in Ljubljana as part of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU was held in Ljubljana.
For us, a successful event
We were co-initiators of this event. One of our core activities at the ECF is the cultural policy developement. We want culture to play a key role on the European political agenda. Therefore we are very glad to read in the post-conference published declaration of the Slovenian presidency, that EU representatives expressed 
their commitment to further integrate culture in external policies and instruments along the lines of the principles enshrined in the Commission Communication on a European Agenda for Culture.
The conference brought together 240 participants: artists and arts networks, cultural commentators and cultural relations organisations, as well as officials from Ministries of Foreign Affairs, the European Commission and the European Parliament.Altogether 46 countries were represented.
A key feature was the active engagement of participants from the EU's neighbouring countries in the Western Balkans and from the European and Mediterranean members of the European Neighbourhood Policy area.
Discussion was based on three regional and three thematic workshops which brought up many conclusions, the most important being the priority of dialogue between public authorities and civil society in policy and tool development in Member States and third countries and between them.
Key speakers included: Ján Figél (European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth), Benita Ferrero-Waldner, (video contribution; European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy), Gijs de Vries (EU's former Anti-Terror Coordinator in Javier Solana´s Office and Senior Fellow, Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael').
The ECF was one of the cooperation partners of the conference, along with the European Commission and the Austrian and Dutch foreign ministries. We are a strong supporter of efforts to highlight the vital importance of the cultural dimension of EU external relations.
See also ECF's Advocacy activities