Hungary/ 3.4 International cultural co-operation  

3.4.3 European / international actors and programmes

During the period of the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January-June 2011) the Hungarian cultural administration was actively involved in managing topical EU matters in culture, such as the preparation of a European Heritage Label, and organised a conference on the place of culture in Europe 2020, the long term strategy of the Union.

Hungary has been a member of UNESCO since 1948. Since October 2011 a Hungarian woman (Katalin Bogyay) is the President of the General Conference of the organisation. In the cultural domain, among others, eight Hungarian sites were added to the World Heritage List between 1987 and 2002. Hungary ratified the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2006. The Hungarian National Committee for Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Hungarian National Inventory of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was established in 2008. Since April 2009, the body responsible for the implementation of the Convention in Hungary is the Intangible Cultural Heritage Department of the Hungarian Open Air Museum in Szentendre; a national inventory was also set up (see chapter 4.2.2). Hungary is also party to the Memory of the World Register. The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions was ratified by Hungary in 2008. The European Folklore Institute (EFI) is a regional centre for the safeguarding, revitalisation and diffusion of traditional culture and folklore in Europe: it was founded in 1996 by Hungarian government and UNESCO.

The European Youth Centre Budapest has been a residential educational establishment of the Council of Europe since 1996. Within the Council of Europe, the EYCB is part of the Directorate of Youth and Sport and is, like the European Youth Centre Strasbourg (EYCS) and the European Youth Foundation (EYF), an important instrument of the Council's youth policy. The EYCB enjoys diplomatic status under an agreement between the Council of Europe and the Hungarian state, the owner of its building.

Upon the initiative of the Hungarian Cultural Contact Point, Hungarian winners of the Culture Programme receive significant and practically automatic grants as matching funding. In the seven years of Culture 2000 (2000-2006) there were nine project leaders, 193 co-organisers and associated organisations from Hungary. Meanwhile, in the new Culture Programme there have been 14 Hungarian beneficiaries, 60 co-organisers and 18 publishers among the grant winners for the period 2007-2011 (some of them more than once).

The Budapest Observatory is an independent non-profit organisation, whose remit is to monitor the cultural policies and conditions of culture in the ex-communist countries in east and central Europe.

Hungary also takes part in the cultural co-operation programme of the Visegrad Fund, as well as of the Central European Initiative. However, neither the dimensions, nor the intensity, of these initiatives match regional co-operation in, for example, the Nordic and Baltic area. The EU strategy for the Danube Region is taking shape rather slowly: Hungary, nevertheless, plays an active role as the Collegium Hungaricum in Vienna is the co-ordinator of the Danube Cultural Cluster.

Beyond these formal and official frameworks, increasingly vibrant co-operation and networking takes place in the civic sector and at municipal level. EU programmes tend to dominate co-operation between regions.

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