In a joint statement issued on 20 November 2015, one week after the tragic attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis on 13 November 2015, the Ministers of Culture of the Member States of the European Union, the European Commissioner for Culture and the President of the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture affirm their ambition for culture in Europe and their determination to fight through it barbarism and obscurantism.
The result of a joint initiative by Fleur Pellerin and his Luxembourg counterpart, Maggy Nagel, who will chair the next Council of Ministers of Culture of the European Union on 24 November, The declaration received unanimous support from the requested European Ministers, as well as senior officials from the Commission and the European Parliament.
With this declaration, the signatories express their solidarity with the victims and their loved ones as well as with the French people. They condemn the barbarity of these acts and stress that, more than ever, culture plays a crucial role in promoting tolerance, integration and respect for others. It is at the heart of the values shared by all the Member States of the European Union.
More than ever, they say, “culture is one of the essential responses that Europe must counter” to fanaticism, radicalisation, xenophobia and racism.