Community action programme 1997-1998 in the fields of books and reading, ARIANE

Mrs MOUSKOURI noted that first and foremost the programme should be renamed as proposed by the amendment: ‘Community support programme in the field of translation’, which ‘acts as Ariadne’s thread’. The amendments sought to: open up the programme to the EEA countries and to the countries that had signed cooperation agreements with the Union; support works produced by young authors and small publishing companies; create a database to encourage cooperation between publishers at European level. Commissioner Oreja stated that the programme was only the beginning of the efforts to promote literary works and that it would go hand in hand with another programme on cultural heritage. The Commission could take over most of the amendments, changing some (such as Amendments Nos 22, 30 and 31 where the expression ‘indigenous languages’ would be replaced with ‘vernacular or regional languages’) and supplementing others (Amendment No 28 on the provisional assessment to be postponed to the end of the first two years of operation). However, the Commission rejected the following amendments: - Amendments Nos 9, 14, 34, 35, 38, 40, 48 and 49 on economic rules, the status of translators, the training of publishers, librarians and booksellers in new technologies, and the publication of Braille works for blind readers since all of these matters were to be dealt with at a later stage in a specific programme on books and reading; in addition, a special programme on the disadvantaged was being drawn up. - Amendments Nos 25, 27 and 45 as they were not consistent with the rules on comitology. - Amendment No 36 on giving priority to publishers who had not previously had Community grants as an impartial system for the selection of works and priority for small, independent publishers were already provided for in the programme.