CULTURE AND ART TO OVERCOME PREJUDICES

The inaugural meeting of the Promotion of the Civil Society Dialogue between the EU and Turkey-II Project: Culture and Arts Grant Scheme Programme was held at Esma Sultan Mansion with participation of Minister for EU Affairs and the Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis.

Delivering a speech at the inauguration, Bagis stated that civil society dialogues which would familiarize the Turkish people with the EU and the EU with the Turkish people created the most important part of the task they performed.

Bagis said, "If you asked what the biggest obstacle before the EU membership was, I would say it was prejudices. Unfortunately it still causes an obstruction at this point in the EU process of Turkey which took a start in 1959. How will we overcome those prejudices? We will do it through the dialogue among the non-governmental organizations. Today we are taking a very important step. Today we are announcing that the NGO's in Turkey will cooperate with their European counterparts."

Within the scope of the programme, 19 cultural and artistic projects of the non-governmental organizations are offered a grant of over 2,2 million Euros. The implementation periods of these projects which will be carried out jointly by the non-governmental organizations in Turkey and in the EU countries vary from 10 months to 15 months.

Source: AA