Conclusion: Culture and the European Union

Abstract

This book has sought to explore how the EU has taken up the concept of culture, and acted in the field. Supranational bodies adopt concepts and ideas but they are not necessarily passive recipients of pre-existing discourses concerning them (Schmitt, 2011: 18). Concepts can be framed in specific ways or can even be changed, generating a specific vision of objectives to be attained. In the realm of culture, a certain degree of complexity arguably exists because cultural policies commonly confront (and frequently address simultaneously) two categories of goals: intrinsic and extrinsic (Bonet and Négrier, 2011: 576–577; Holden and Baltà, 2012: 7). The first category of objectives typically translates into public support measures for culture’s own sake, with the argument that culture has value in its own right. The second category of objectives leads to measures that draw on culture as a means to pursue public policy goals, for instance of an economic or social nature. Culture becomes an instrument in this sense — it is considered to have instrumental value. Specifically in the EU context, complexities also arise on account of the principle of subsidiarity that underpins EU cultural action; the transversal nature of culture, which brings it within the sphere of various EU policies, beyond the EU cultural policy proper; and the involvement of the EU in the activities of various supranational institutions that have their own ‘cultural’ vocation, in accordance with their competences.