Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-11-Speech-1-113"

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"en.20010611.7.1-113"2
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"Mr President, the report by Pedro Aparicio Sánchez deserves great appreciation and unconditional consensus because, for the first time, it deals critically and constructively with one of the European Union’s most serious and dramatic problems: the preservation of a common cultural heritage unique in human history and the target of depredations and devastation for too many years, often through the culpable indifference of the European authorities appointed to protect it. The debate in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport on the implementation of the regulation on the export of cultural goods and the directive on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State was wide-ranging and exhaustive, although the absence of a direct personal contribution by the Commissioner responsible for culture, Mrs Viviane Reding, was regretted, as were the gaps and inconsistencies in the report from the Directorate-General for Education and Culture. The bitter truth is that the defence of this immense cultural and artistic heritage has been left to the individual national authorities – in my country to one brave officer, General Conforti – without any incisive coordination that really works being in place at Community level, thereby at least applying the general principles of the UNESCO Convention. All this is in the face of a massive offensive by organised crime and the shadiest traffic, like money laundering and tax evasion. All this damages the serious and honest antiques trade, a victim of unbridled competition from speculators and the great trading combines. To mention only my own country, Italy, immensely valuable works of art have been stolen, illegally exported or simply vanished: by Michelangelo Merisi di Caravaggio by Giovanni Bellini by Antonello Da Messina, at least two masterpieces by Cima da Conegliano. Meanwhile the plunder of the archaeological heritage advances at an increasingly rapid pace. These days you only have to go to the Sablon quarter in Brussels to see, impudently displayed in shop windows, dozens of splendid second century oil amphorae, marble bas-reliefs recovered last year – actually last September – from the bottom of the sea by alleged scientific expeditions, almost always from the United States. For these and other pressing reasons Mr Aparicio’s report represents a historic change in direction for Union cultural policy. This first thoughtful document will hopefully be followed by others and acceptance, if belated, of responsibility by the Council and the Commission."@en1
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"Ecce Homo"1
"La Madonna dell'Orto"1
"The Nativity"1

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