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Minister of State Müntefering on the Federal Government’s 22nd Report on Cultural Relations and Education Policy
The Federal Government adopted the 22nd Report on Cultural Relations and Education Policy for the year 2018 today (10 July). Michelle Müntefering, Minister of State for International Cultural Policy at the Federal Foreign Office, issued the following statement on the importance of cross-border cultural and educational work:
We are working to facilitate access to culture and education, across borders, in order to lay the foundations for understanding.
We are promoting our values and principles, including the freedom of opinion, science and art. This is what we aspire to do and what we stand for at European and international level. In these efforts, we are able to draw on a worldwide network of intermediary organisations and partners – from our schools abroad, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Deutsche Welle (DW), ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) and the Goethe-Institut to the many projects and actors in the context of our cooperation with civil society, for example in the countries of the Eastern Partnership and Russia. In view of fast-paced global upheavals, from technological developments to shifts in the balance of power around the world, international cultural relations and education policy must also change.
In order to remain a relevant actor, we are putting our instruments to the test and developing new concepts – for example for the digital sphere – in a strategy process up to 2020. The Federal Government’s 22nd Report on Cultural Relations and Education Policy for the year 2018, adopted today by the Federal Cabinet, sets out what we have achieved in the past year and also what we still intend to do.
Background information:
Cultural relations and education policy is the third pillar of German foreign policy alongside political and economic relations. The priorities presented in the Report on Cultural Relations and Education Policy for the year 2018 include a commitment to create open spaces, for example with the Philipp Schwartz Initiative for threatened researchers and the Martin Roth Initiative for artists at risk.
In order to strengthen the European dimension of cultural relations and education policy, Franco-German cultural institutes will be set up together with France, which were agreed to in the Treaty of Aachen and which can also form the nucleus of a common European cultural policy.
Cultural relations and education policy strengthens exchanges between civil societies, including within the framework of youth exchange programmes. In 2018, funding for cooperation with civil society in the Eastern Partnership countries and Russia was increased to 17 million euros thanks to the support of the German Bundestag.
Together with its partners, the Federal Government is promoting the German language around the world as well as educational opportunities relating to our country. The PASCH (Schools: Partners for the Future) network and schools abroad, as well as academic exchanges around the world are particularly important in this regard. Further priorities include supporting cross-border cooperation in the spheres of knowledge and culture as well as the creative industries.
Deutschlandjahr USA 2018/19, which is under the patronage of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is an important regional focus that seeks to reflect the profound importance of transatlantic relations.
You can read the full Report on Cultural Relations and Education Policy for the year 2018 (in German) here:
Additional content
The Federal Government’s 22nd Report on Cultural Relations and Education Policy provides a summary of the priorities, events and projects in the area of cultural and educational work with an…