Proposition 53K2794

Projet de loi portant assentiment à la Convention sur la protection et la promotion de la diversité des expressions culturelles, et à l'Annexe, adoptées à Paris le 20 octobre 2005.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

March 22, 2013

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

Unesco UN convention cultural cooperation cultural pluralism international agreement

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR

Abstained from voting

VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

May 29, 2013 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

by Mr. Deseyn, the rapporteur, refers to his written report.

I have already intervened extensively in the committee on this treaty.

Following the approval by the Flemish Parliament, already a few months ago, and the Senate, each time with a reasoned abstinence from the Flemish Interest, it is now up to us to speak about the UNESCO Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions.

I do not deny that I have a double feeling about this treaty. It is actually a two-sided sword. This in itself good text cannot be seen apart from the framework of the Belgian society association or rather the side-by-side life association.

Of course, it is a good thing that Articles 5, 6 and 8 provide an instrument on how cultural goods and services, as bearers of identity and values of a very special nature, are exempted from the general principle of free trade.

This recognizes the right of states to recognize and promote specific cultural expressions in their own territory, and they escape, it should be added, the logic of free trade agreements.

In this way, the threatening displacement of small cultures and languages such as the Fries, Basque, Catalan, Breton, Roman, Occitanian, I call only the European, can be countered by dominant cultures and can de facto be called for cultural goods a form of protectionism.

This is the purpose of the treaty. Well so so.

Articles 7, 11 and 14 set a number of objectives for minorities in the field of cultural expressions and their dissemination and experience. In itself there is nothing wrong with this too, but within the Belgian context, a context that we unfortunately still have to take into account for some time, this reference to minorities with a probability limiting to certainty would and will come in conflict with the current division of the territory into language regions.

At that time, this treaty, which we will vote on later, directly interferes with the precarious institutional balance of this country. Of course, the Flemish Belang is in favour of intervening, but fundamentally, in the sense of an orderly division of this country. Not mine, not more.

It is therefore all but unthinkable that the French speakers in this country will abuse this convention to claim minority rights and promote the spread of the French-speaking culture in Flanders, and especially in the outskirts around Brussels. Now that the mayor of Vilvoorde has finally come to the conclusion that it is five before twelve on the level of the Franging of the Rand, we cannot afford additional Trojan horses.

The fact that the French-speaking Community has refused to consent to the drafting and submission of an interpretative statement to this Convention is, of course, also false. Such a declaration would indeed mean that this convention has only an interstate effect and is harmless for internal Belgian use. This was apparently too much demanded for our French-speaking countrymen. Then the Flemish government may invoke the memorandum of explanation as an authority argument, from which it should then show – as it was said in the Flemish Parliament – that there is less risk of a possible French-language abuse than is assumed, but if I see in which file Flanders are so late to ringlearn, then I am very little sure of that.

That is why our group, despite an in itself good treaty, will abstain.

Le Président: Somebody asks-t-il yet the word? (No to)

Does anyone ask for the word? (Not to)

The general discussion is closed.

The general discussion is closed.

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