Former EU commissioner for culture Androulla Vassiliou.
Uncontrolled development risks spoiling Malta’s cultural heritage and destroying a “vital asset” for the country, according to the former European Commissioner for culture Androulla Vassiliou.
“What is most characteristic about Malta is its artistic and cultural environment,” Ms Vassiliou told the Times of Malta. “We’ve seen in many places how uncontrolled development can destroy a country.”
The former commissioner, who served between 2008 and 2014, expressed particular concern over the proliferation of skyscrapers in sensitive urban areas, which she said had the potential to destroy important skylines.
“You have to be very careful with town planning and environmental planning; the two have to go together,” she said. “You cannot have any development without serious environmental studies and examining the impact of the development on the surrounding area.”
Ms Vassiliou was in Malta this week for the launch of a national arts strategy for the next five years. Welcoming the new document, the first of its kind in Malta, she called on the government to make more funds available for culture and place it at the centre of its strategic planning.
“The most important thing is the intrinsic value: in these times of crisis, culture is our refuge,” she said. “But in addition, culture and creativity can contribute to development and creation of jobs. When you consider that 4.5 per cent of the European GDP is related to culture, it would be very short-sighted of governments not to support creativity and artistic expression.”
Although the new arts strategy provides for €10 million in funding for artists and cultural organisations in the next five years, Ms Vassiliou said more still needed to be done to help small creative enterprises gain access to start-up finance.
“Banks usually only give loans to things they can understand, and it’s difficult for them to understand intangible assets,” she said. “Our goal is now to help banks understand and to give loans to these small enterprises.”
Ms Vassiliou highlighted the problems facing small countries like Malta in exporting their artistic content and creators to the “fragmented” European market, due to differences in language and culture.
She stressed the need for more cultural exchange between European countries – a key aspect of Creative Europe, the EU’s €1.46 billion cultural programme – as a means towards breaking down these barriers.
The former commissioner also gave her vote of confidence to Malta’s ongoing preparations for Valletta 2018, which came under fire from the EU monitoring board in October for “lagging behind expectations”.
The board had raised concerns over the event’s financial planning and the lack of a coherent programme of events.
“All culture capitals go through a crisis at certain points – not that there is necessarily a crisis here,” Ms Vassiliou said. “It’s a big experiment that requires a lot of preparation and cooperation between different actors, but from the impression I got so far, it seems that Malta is doing fine.”
Thursday, December 17, 2015, 06:01 by Philip Leone-Ganado