Cohesion and Citizenship in EU Cultural Policy

Abstract

This article analyses the ideas and principles that EU cultural policy seeks to promote, and how they are connected to cohesion policy and citizenship. A review of the background to the 2000–04 first framework in support of culture shows that the European Commission justifies cultural policy predominantly in connection with cohesion, while it also aims for the development of a European identity as a civic culture. This view is compared with that of the Committee of the Regions (COR), and the divergence of cultural ends between them is made explicit. Finally, the article relates this case to the wider debate on liberal citizenship and minority/national rights, and warns that such a discrepancy stems from two conflicting models of citizenship.