Greece/ 3.4 International cultural co-operation  

3.4.2 Public actors and cultural diplomacy

Since 2000, responsibility for foreign cultural relations has been transferred from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Ministry of Culture. This concerns all major issues in bilateral cultural relations, such as the campaign for the restitution of the Parthenon Marbles.

Nevertheless, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the Ministry of Education, are involved together with the Ministry of Culture in running the large number of bilateral cultural agreements and programmes, providing a framework for some actions in international cultural relations (mainly scholarships, exchange of personnel in the arts). Recently, however, there have been several developments limiting the effectiveness of such agreements and have led to the emergence of new forms of cultural co-operation such as: changes in the cultural sector in Eastern and SE Europe due to the fall of communism, the gradual devolution of responsibilities from the state to arms-length organisations in many countries and, the emergence of diverse co-operation and funding opportunities - notably from the European Union.

The Hellenic Cultural Foundation, working through a network of branches or representatives in Berlin, London, Odessa, Moscow, Alexandria, Bucharest, Sofia and Tirana (and, for the period 2007-2009, also Beijing) operates under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture. It is active in organising events aimed at promoting Greek language, literature, art and culture abroad; in producing publications that serve this same goal; and, in monitoring, evaluating and coordinating the study of Modern Greek abroad.

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