Italy/ 3.4 International cultural co-operation  

3.4.2 Public actors and cultural diplomacy

The subsequent stages of the multiplication of institutional actors responsible for international cultural cooperation can be synthesised as follows:

• The first of the new actors was MAE's new DG for Cooperation and Development, created by Law 49/1987 on Italian "aid for economic development and peace reinforcement". Providing support for the safeguard and enhancement of cultural heritage is among the priority aims assigned to the DG by Article 1, par.2 of the Law. After years of occasional restoration and archaeological campaigns, acceleration of the DG's activities in the heritage field was fostered by the adoption, from 1999 on, of bilateral agreements with Syria, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon and Albania, for the reorganisation of these countries' departments for antiquities. It was actually the starting point of a strong and expanding impetus for the DG's support and technical assistance – in collaboration with the Ministry for Heritage – for the safeguard of the artistic and historic assets of the developing countries (see chapter 3.4.5). It should be added that heritage programmes of this DG have been developed in addition to similar programmes still carried out by the DG for Cultural Promotion and Cooperation, albeit with a much lower availability of financial resources (Ago, Santagata, Rapporto sull'Economia della Cultura in Italia, 2004).
• Other Directorates General were established following the adoption of two subsequent extensive reforms of MAE's organisational structure, adopted in the years 2000 and 2010, respectively. The first reform changed the Ministry's focus of the DGs from a sectorial basis to a territorial one. Consequently, the DG for Cultural Promotion and Cooperation lost responsibility for the monitoring and financially support of various, including culturally relevant, international and national organisations (the EU, the Council of Europe, the Istituto Latino Americano, the Istituto per l' Africa e l' Oriente, etc…), which were assigned to other DGs responsible for geographical areas. With the most recent reform brought about by Presidential Decree 95/2010 on the reorganisation of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs - which substituted the DG for Cultural Promotion with a Central Directorate for the Promotion of Italian Culture and Language - fragmentation of cultural competences among the Ministry's administrative units appears to be even more complicated (see further).
• The relative loss of responsibilities of the DG for Cultural Promotion and Cooperation in Italy's international cultural cooperation policies was paralleled, since early 2000, by a simultaneous upgrading of the role of the Ministry for Heritage and Cultural Activities, which had extended its responsibilities to the whole framework of national cultural policies, including the performing arts (see chapter 1) and the related promotion abroad. MiBAC's strengthened international role should be also ascribed to the growing relevance in cultural cooperation matters of the Council of the Cultural Ministers of the Union, as well as to the above mentioned enhancement of Italy's leadership in advising and technically and financially supporting the developing countries' heritage policies. However, unlike in other countries, MiBAC has no specific DG in charge of foreign relations, which are shared instead among the cabinet's Diplomatic Advisor, a Unit for International Relations supervised by the Secretary General, and / or the various DGs or Istituti Centrali (for art and book restoration, for cataloguing, etc…).
• Finally, the adoption of Constitutional Law 3/2001 - opening up Italy to a more federally oriented institutional system (see chapter 5.1.2) and thus enhancing the role of the 20 Italian regions in cultural cooperation abroad - further contributed to a multiplication of Italian institutional actors in the international cultural arena. In fact, having obtained (through the reformulated art. 117 of the Constitution) concurrent competencies with the state in the field of the enhancement of cultural goods and the promotion of cultural activities, the regions - already quite efficient in the international promotion of their own cultural image abroad – have now full legal responsibility. The organisation of artistic events, the exchanges of artists, art exhibitions and performances, are actively pursued at the regional level, in collaboration with the DG for Cultural Promotion and Cooperation, but also autonomously. Furthermore, most of the main cities have also become quite important actors for international cultural exchanges, often in the framework of "twinning cities" bilateral agreements (Rome-Paris, etc.). Moreover, Culture 2000 and other EU cultural programmes - along with programmes by the Council of Europe, such as the Cultural Itineraries, etc…- have acted as effective catalysts for regional and local international cultural cooperation.

Further information in this chapter is thus mainly focused on the cultural cooperation activities carried out by MAE's main institutional actor: the Directorate Central for the Promotion of Italian Culture and Language.

The Directorate Central for the Promotion of Italian Culture and Language

One of the outcomes of the MAE's recent reorganisation was a rationalisation of the Ministry's DGs through their reduction from 12 to 8, also in view of cost saving, and of establishing a closer connection between culture and the economy. The DG for Cultural Promotion and Cooperation changed to the Directorate Central for the Promotion of the Italian Culture and Language, placed - along with a Directorate Central for Internationalisation (aimed at the promotion of economic and business activities abroad) - under the DG for the Country’s Promotion (Economy, Culture and Science).

This time the administrative reorganisation of the eight new DGs followed a mix of geographical and functional criteria (the latter being: political affairs and security, globalisation, promotion, European Union, etc…). Thus the competencies for monitoring and financial supporting international organisations like the UN and the Council of Europe as well as national organisations active in North America, Russia, the Mediterranean, Eastern non EU countries and the Middle East have been assigned to the DG for Political Affairs and Security. EU affairs will be dealt with by the DG for the European Union, whereas institutions active in South America, Sub Saharan Africa and Eastern Asia, etc….fall now under the competence of the DG for Globalisation.

The main areas of activity in the cultural field of the new Directorate – also responsible for cooperation in educational and scientific matters - lies in bilateral cultural co-operation, carried out through the Italian Cultural Institutes Abroad, through bilateral cultural agreements, and through the joint organisation of full scale yearly cultural events.

The network of Italian Cultural Institutes Abroad - whose mission is the promotion of Italian culture and language in foreign countries - has been in operation since the 1930s, and has gradually become more extensive: it presently operates in 89 institutes, 53% of which are located in Europe. Notwithstanding the fact that their organisation has been rationalised by Law 401/1990, the institutes are again under scrutiny. In fact, it is generally felt that this precious asset for international cultural cooperation and dialogue does not keep up with its great potential, and that a new legislative reform is needed, although several draft laws precisely aimed at reorganising the institutes have been lost…

Some of the weakest points of the Institutes are considered:

• the lack of autonomy as, unlike some foreign counterparts such as the Goethe Institute, they are informally submissive to the Ministry's control – and subject to the changing moods of swinging political majorities; and
• their endemic shortages in financial resources, often barely sufficient to carry out ordinary activities (libraries, Italian language teaching, small scale events), leaving little left to wide ranging development and outreach programmes.

Budget shortages seem to have become even more severe after the latest cuts in the yearly allowances for the institutes' activities for 2011: down to only 13 million EUR from 14 million in 2010 and 18 million in 2007 (see Table 1): so much so that a downsizing of the institutes worldwide network is presently at stake.

Bilateral cooperation is also carried out by means of about seventy bilateral cultural agreements with other countries, dealing with a whole range of activities: exchanges of scholars, artists, performances, artistic events, archaeological missions, etc. However, with some exceptions - like the agreements dealing with cinema co-productions and heritage – the bilateral agreements are no longer considered as the most effective instrument for international cultural cooperation. In fact, they tend to be gradually integrated and / or replaced by better focused technical agreements of a more limited scope.

The latest bilateral endeavour, in which the former DG has engaged in recent times, is the joint organisation of full scale yearly cultural events in given countries, selected according to foreign policy priority criteria (see chapter 3.4.6).

It should be added that an enhanced promotion of the Italian language abroad – with a particular focus on the Americas, and on countries with huge Italian Diasporas - has also been pursued with success in recent years. An encouraging increase in the number of students learning our language in the Italian Cultural Institutes (+38% between 1995 and 2000) was highlighted in a survey carried out in 2003 by the Ministry (De Mauro, 2003). Nevertheless, the study reported that the supply of Italian language teaching is not able to satisfy a much increased demand and that more efforts should be made in this direction.

Regarding multilateral cultural co-operation, since the loss of competency for cultural activities related to the EU and the Council of Europe after the 2000 reform, the DC's main competency dealing with international organisations presently relates to UNESCO, where the focus of Italian activities has mostly been on heritage (support to the World Heritage Centre, archaeological missions, etc...: see also chapter 3.4.3).

Finally, one of the main problems the Directorate has presently to face is the progressive loss in its already inadequate financial resources available for the promotion of Italian culture and language abroad: -40% between 2007 and 2011 (see Table 1).

Table 1:     Expenditure for culture by MAE's DG for the promotion of Italian culture and language abroad, budget figures, in million EUR, 2007-2011

Source:  Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Directorate Central for the Promotion of Italian Culture and Language.

In particular, the promotion of the Italian language and the organisation of cultural and artistic events – both losing around 60% of their financial allocations between 2007 and 2011 – have been more heavily affected than the Italian cultural institutes (-27%).

The impact of the present financial crisis is thus particularly heavy, and even more so for a country whose willingness to fund cultural diplomacy had already been lagging behind other major European countries, like France and Germany.

It should be kept in mind, though, that these figures do not include the "staff expenditure" absorbed by the salaries of the Administrative and Diplomatic staff of the Directorate and by the 180 APC (the so called "Addetti alla Promozione Culturale") employed in an ad hoc role both by the Institutes abroad and by the Directorate at home. The amount of the latter, quite substantial expenditure – the big bulk of the financing of the DG's cultural promotion abroad – has not been made available by MAE. Furthermore, considering that Italy's overall state expenditure for the support of international cultural cooperation through its other many public actors (see above) – operating in other ministries, or in other DGs of the MAE itself - is not known, for the time being reliable comparisons with state expenditure for cultural cooperation by other countries are in no way possible.

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