Rich in culture and art

The European Union “exports” more goods and services closely linked with culture and art than it imports. That’s one of the key findings that emerges from the Eurostat survey, called “Cultural Statistics”, in which relevant data such as number of employees, production, prices, trade and differences between one country and another are reported, also taking EU candidate countries into account. The statistics office of the European Commission sums up the matter as follows: “Culture plays an important role in the daily life of Europeans”.Artists, writers. Statistics, according to the experts of Eurostat, enable the “cultural behaviour” and the “intercultural contacts” of the some 500 million EU citizens to be measured. The study (over 250 pages, available in English on the website http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat), includes chapters of enterprises active in the sector, on education and training, on reading habits, and on the use of cultural services. Among the data published by the survey is the fact that approximately one and half million people in the EU27 work in the role of artists (in the broad sense), writers or associated roles. That’s 0.7% of the total work force. “The largest number of these workers are found in Germany (330,000 persons), the UK (200,000), France (180,000), Italy (120,000), followed by the Netherlands and Spain. But the proportion of these workers out of the total workforce varies a great deal, rising from 0.1% in Romania to 1.5% in Finland and Sweden. University students enrolled in courses linked to the arts (data for 2007/2008) total 725,000, i.e. 3.8% of the total, with high points in the UK (6.8%), in Ireland (6.6%), Finland and Cyprus. includes chapters of enterprises active in the sector, on education and training, on reading habits, and on the use of cultural services. Among the data published by the survey is the fact that approximately one and half million people in the EU27 work in the role of artists (in the broad sense), writers or associated roles. That’s 0.7% of the total work force. “The largest number of these workers are found in Germany (330,000 persons), the UK (200,000), France (180,000), Italy (120,000), followed by the Netherlands and Spain. But the proportion of these workers out of the total workforce varies a great deal, rising from 0.1% in Romania to 1.5% in Finland and Sweden. University students enrolled in courses linked to the arts (data for 2007/2008) total 725,000, i.e. 3.8% of the total, with high points in the UK (6.8%), in Ireland (6.6%), Finland and Cyprus.Export and imports. From Eurostat’s survey “Cultural Statistics” we learn that “cultural properties represent a significant part both of exports from and imports into” the EU27. In 2010 “0.6% of exports from the EU to the rest of the world involved cultural products and services”, while imports remained unvaried at 0.4%. In the classification of cultural and artistic exports the UK takes first place, with a percentage triple that of the rest of the Union, followed – as a percentage of national GDP – by Estonia, France, Cyprus, Latvia and Austria. But Austria is also the major importer in the sector, followed by Ireland, the UK, Greece and Cyprus. As regards the prices of cultural goods and services – such as the entrance for museums or concerts -, the survey shows that in the five-year period 2005/2010 they grew more than the average of all other prices (i.e. 13.3% in comparison with the average of 11.9%). The price of dailies and magazines, however, rose by 17.5%, whereas that of books only rose by 6.5%, i.e. less than the average inflation rate in the five-year period.Interculture. The monitoring of intercultural contacts in the EU has been assigned to Eurobarometer, the public opinion analysis sector of the European Commission. The findings here show that 27% of persons over the age of 15 have on average made a journey abroad at least once per year; 22% of those interviewed have a close relation who is living, working or temporarily resident in another European country; 19% of the sample “often watch a television channel or a film in a foreign language”; 9% often read a paper in a language other than their mother tongue; and only 7% read foreign books. Approximately a quarter of those interviewed, on the other hand, declared they had no intercultural contact. Survey on social networking: children at riskCulture and interpersonal relations are also expressed through the internet, but in this case they are not without dangers. “A growing number of children and adolescents access social networking sites, but many of them don’t adopt the necessary precautions to protect themselves online, thus exposing themselves to the risks of stalking and grooming”. Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission, has commented on a pan-European survey conducted on behalf of the Executive from which it emerges that “77% of teenagers aged between 13 and 16 and 38% of children aged between 9 and 12 years have registered a profile on a social networking site”. A quarter of those interviewed (in total 25,000 youth in 25 countries) “declare they surf on websites like Facebook, Hyves, Tuenti” with “a public profile, hence visible to everyone, and many of them specify on them even their address and telephone number”. “The picture that emerges from the survey assumes significance – says the Commissioner – also in view of the forthcoming revision of the European agreement on safer networks online”. Kroes adds: “All managers of social networking sites ought immediately to increase the level of privacy of the profiles of their underage users, making them accessible only to a circle of persons established by the users themselves and excluding them from online search engines”. Operators who have not yet signed up to the European agreement on social networks (“a step forward to child safety online”) “are invited to do so as soon as possible, because what’s at stake is the safety of our children”.