President Türk highlights the significance of culture for Europe’s further development

Bled, 6.3.2009  |  press release

The President of the Republic of Slovenia, Dr Danilo Türk, attended the 10th Bled Forum on Europe Foresight Conference, with the theme “The Role of Culture in the Knowledge Society – Contribution to the European Year of Creativity and Innovation”. In his opening address, Dr Türk termed the programme of the conference ambitious, since it focused on the interplay between culture and development, explaining that human society is shaped by its culture, which is also a driving force behind its comprehensive further development. He pointed out that, in the past, the Slovenian nation had made progress thanks to culture – the very basis on which the quality of our further development will continue to rest.

We live in Europe, which is undergoing an interesting transition, said Dr Türk. The European Union, which has established itself as a community through economic instruments, constitutes an important part of this transition. Our horizons have broadened, and the European Union is developing new instruments to enable it to develop further. Dr Türk highlighted the concept of Europe as a single intellectual space as one of these important instruments. However, in order to achieve this and enable Europe to continue to develop, it is necessary to overcome historical barriers, warned President Türk, adding that this is a long-term task.

The President highlighted the issue of providing conditions for a rapid, successful and diverse movement of intellectual potential within Europe as the key task, pointing out that it would lead to generating new ideas, innovation and economic approaches, thus helping Europe unlock its creativity, thanks to which it had once been the centre of the world. In his words, Europe has a rich cultural heritage with a potent and coherent aesthetic message. In the area of the critically important arts, which lie at the core of culture, Europe shares a common and impressive heritage.

However, President Türk cautioned that, in certain respects, Europe did not have a common identity, and that it sometimes seemed that certain cultures were considered less important or even unimportant compared to others. He emphasised that this made Europe less powerful in the area of popular culture, which people enjoy as part of their daily lives. Bearing in mind the extraordinary wealth of the European cultural tradition and the fact that culture is a driving force behind development, we cannot and must not lose sight of this issue, stressed Dr Türk at the close of his address and wished the conference participants every success in their debates.