Kaleidoscope: Community action programme 1996-1998 to support artistic and cultural activities with a European dimension

In its opinion on the Council's common position concerning this proposal, the Commission supported the Council's text in general although it did have some significant reservations concerning the following points: - in a declaration to the minutes annexed to the Council's text, the Commission indicated that, in accordance with the wishes of the European Parliament, it intended to submit a proposal for the implementation of a specific programme for the European city of culture after 2000; - duration of the programme: the Commission considered that the Council's text was the result of a compromise between the delegations and that the text could be accepted at this stage; - overall financial framework: the Commission felt that since the programme had been reduced to three years, the financial framework was acceptable despite the fact that the sum adopted by the Council did not correspond exactly to three fifths of the initial budget (in reducing the budget, the Council had simply taken over the totals proposed by the Commission in its financial statement for the first three years. The Commission had actually increased the level of support slightly for the last two years); - comitology: the Commission considered that the number and detail of the elements to be submitted to the Committee were excessive given the scope, duration and financial framework of the programme, but explained this approach by the fact that this sector was of great national importance and represented a new field of action for the Community. The Commission believed that the threshold over which projects should be submitted to the Committee (ECU 10 000) was too low and risked slowing down unnecessarily the procedures for granting support and adding to the costs of meetings. The Commission also included in the minutes to the Council's text a reference to the assessment report it was required to draw up two years after Kaleidoscope had been brought into operation: this report, which, according to the Council, should be submitted to the programme's Committee, would have to be examined outside all so-called "comitology" procedures (in this case a management committee). Under no circumstances could it be considered as draft measures to be adopted by the Council within that committee since the report should be submitted to the EP and the Economic and Social Committee for their opinions (there was a risk in this case that the Council would give its opinion "a priori" on a report that it should in any event consider later together with the other institutions); - new structure of the text: on this point, the Commission felt the spirit of the proposal had been retained and that the text could therefore be accepted. �