Participation of EU Member States’ Citizens on Foreign Culture and Cultural Products

Abstract

Culture is an important topic of the present time. It is at the heart of contemporary debates about identity, social cohesion, and the development of a knowledge-based economy. The international organizations, like UNESCO, OECD, Council of Europe, as well as European Commission are affirming, that respect for the diversity of cultures, tolerance, dialogue and cooperation, in a climate of mutual trust and understanding, are among the best guarantees of international peace and security. Therefore the cultural and creative sectors are considered as very important in European Union countries. The article deals with the issue of the participation of EU citizens on foreign cultures and cultural product as the expression of interest and openness of the citizens of individual EU member countries to get known foreign culture of other EU member state. The willingness of EU citizens to participate in foreign cultures across EU is evaluated based on the indicators describing the level of foreign languages knowledge and the participation in foreign cultural products. The evaluation was performed by usage of multi-criteria decision making methods, of MAPPAC method. As the result of the analyse is evident the different attitude to foreign culture of citizens in individual EU countries.