IT would be easy to dismiss last week's meeting of EU ministers of culture in Galway as a hot air jamboree where no concrete decisions were taken.
But it was remarkable for the manner in which the assembled ministers and civil servants responded to Prof Brigid Laffan's blistering critique of the EU.
She was asked to address the ministers on the role and position of culture in the EU. She used her opportunity to give a blunt warning the EU will fall apart if it does not take cultural issues much more seriously.
Card carrying Europhiles might be expected to react with dismay to her analysis, which posed fundamental questions about where the EU is heading. But rather than shooting the messenger, several ministers embraced her ideas with enthusiasm, and complimented her warmly.
Prof Laffan comes from UCD's department of politics and her words carry extra weight as she is also the Jean Monnet Professor of European Politics. She outlined the origins of the EU in narrow economic agreements following the second World War.
"Historical routes to unity, be they imperial or dynastic, were rejected in favour of efforts to domesticate and tame inter state relations in Western Europe and the excesses of nationalism in each state," she said.
The original EEC treaties were "remarkably silent" about the cultural component of European integration, adopting instead a functional approach to economic co operation. "Calls to Europe's cultural heritage rang hollow with the barbarity and destruction of the war and the holocaust still fresh in people's consciousness.
As the EEC developed, cultural issues surfaced, but only in an economic context. The European Court of Justice ruled that the principle of the free movement of goods applied to cultural "goods" or services. "Culture was addressed as a product or an activity rather than for its basic values."
Formal consideration of cultural issues in their own right emerged slowly during the 1980s but the development of cultural policy was "tentative and shallow".
Prof Laffan said: "EU cultural policies in the 1980s were fragmented, with no coherent rationale about the role of culture in European integration. In fact, the Union's activities appeared to touch a raw nerve in the member states. There was a general unrest and unease, albeit more pronounced in some member states than in others, at the Union's growing involvement in both education and cultural policy."
Some of this unease is reflected in Article 128 of the Maastricht Treaty, which says the EU "shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the member states, while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore".
She pointed to the contradiction in aims to promote a flowering of the cultures of individual member states, while at the same time stressing Europe's common cultural heritage. "Is there not a tension between preserving the diversity and variety of cultures in Europe and at the same time seeking to recognise commonalities?
"Moreover, just what Europe's common cultural heritage consists of is highly contested and problematic," she said.
Generally, the basis for cultural policy remains "weak, ambiguous and contested", and the decision making processes involved are "cumbersome and time consuming", she said. Cultural policy is highly sensitive and the progress of some proposed programmes has been "tortuous and difficult". Areas such as education, youth or regional policy have a major cultural dimension, but expenditure in these areas rarely involves specific consideration of cultural issues.
In the early 1990s, two major developments created a crisis for the future of the EU. The first was the globalisation of the world economy, which "placed considerable strain on Europe's model of economy and society, particularly on social provision, which has underpinned democratic politics in Western Europe since the war.
"The second was the collapse of communism in 1989, which transformed Europe's geopolitics in ways that are still being worked out. The role of Germany in the new Europe, pressures for a continental enlargement of the Union, the growth of sub national regionalisms, and the challenge of immigration all beg questions about Europe's boundaries, European identity and the relationship between identity and the European project."
The difficult passage of the Maastricht Treaty "politicised" the question of European integration in a way not experienced before.
"It brought Europe's shallow political roots sharply into focus and exposed the limits of the Monnet method of integration. This method was described by Pascal Lamy, Delors's chef de cabinet, in the following terms: `the people weren't ready to agree to integration, so you had to get on without telling them too much about what was happening'."
"The Monnet method of building Europe through a web of institutional linkages and instrumental utilitarian benefits was exposed. The void at the heart of the integration project was graphically described by Vaclav Havel in his speech to the European Parliament in March 1994...
"The European project has been dominated by governments and their officials, leading to a constitutional order that is characterised by executive branch technocratic thinking and process. Those who controlled the project created a new kind of public realm".
"The Monnet method paid virtually no attention to attachment, we feeling, solidarity and a sense of community. Europe as a cultural space was ignored."
Responding to her speech, the State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science in the Netherlands, Mr Aad Nuis, welcomed the "first exchange of views" on what he regarded as a very important topic.
His comments are significant as he will inherit the portfolio for this area when the EU presidency passes to the Netherlands on January 1st.
UP to now, he said, the EU has only scratched the surface of the possibilities inherent in Article 128 of the Maastricht Treaty.
In particular, he pointed out that paragraph 4 of the article gives the EU the legal authority to involve cultural considerations in every area of EU activity. Paragraph 4 says:
"The Community shall take cultural aspects into account in its action under other provisions of the Treaty.
He promised that the issues raised by Prof Laffan would not disappear "ever again" from his agenda. Up to now EU developments in the cultural area had come about largely by coincidence. It was clear it "could go the other way". The growing recognition of the importance of cultural issues could be reversed.
But it was also clear to him that economic issues are still being considered in isolation in the corridors of power in Brussels. No one has yet started to consider the cultural impact of new legislation. We are still some way from recognising the need for "Cultural Impact Assessments" of certain projects, in the way environmental assessments are now the norm.
This lamentable state of affairs should be challenged at the highest level, Mr Nuis suggested. It was time to stand up and be counted. If ministers with responsibility for cultural matters were not prepared to make a stand, then who else would do so?