EU Cross Mediterranean cultural policies: The implementation of EU cultural policy in Algeria

This presentation will explore some of the EU programmes in Algeria which have explicitly, or implicitly, targeted the cultural sector over the last decade. It will discuss reasons for the previously limited role of the EU in culture and explore the role of cultural associations in implementing EU programmes.
Despite ambitious EU policy statements, a successful annual cultural festival, and receptive actors within Algerian civil society and the state, the EU's engagement in Algeria has been limited. Institutional, bureaucratic, linguistic, economic and historical factors all weigh heavily upon relations between Algeria and the EU in the cultural domain. Algeria has historically resented the hub and spoke approach of the EU, with standardised programmes applied across the ENPI region, whatever the sector.
Yet, all these difficulties have, it is argued, potentially led to a more promising environment in which the EU could intervene in Algeria in the cultural sector. And recent culturally oriented EU programmes have been identified, in external evaluations, as successes. It is argued that a less normative approach, lower funding levels and more open scope for project proposals, has enabled the EU to slowly build up a stronger relationship in Algeria, and to work more effectively with ministries and associations in a challenging context. With the commitment of €21.5 million to support heritage and culture in 2011, and Algerian actors signing up to regional programmes such as the €17 million "Media and Culture programme," EU is placing itself, with the approval of the Algerian government, as a major actor in Algeria in the cultural domain.