Cultural Services (intervento presentato all' ATELIER/WORKSHOP "Social Services 'Law-Policy Interplay: European and Italian Rules - responsabile prof. Angelo Mattioni)

Art. 9 of the Ital. Const. states that the Republic has to keep to the duty of promotion of culture. This concept doesn't cover the sector of education, which lays down a true obligation of delivery to be undertaken by public powers. The two rules here considered are very different: while the demand for culture is based on mere freedom, the demand for education relies on a genuine social right. It means that only the latter must be satisfied by public powers through an offer within the essential service levels; as to the former, there is no similar obligation. If this is the const. framework, we cannot conclude that the Welfare State is therefore totally extraneous. Although interventions in the field of culture are undertaken at the public powers' discretion, an active political action should be desirable also for the positive impact the offer of cultural services would have on both economy and employment. The EU legal system is based on Art. 151 CE Treaty. The subject matter culture doesn't belong to EU, but to the Member States-MS: EU can only operate with soft law acts, like the resolution of the Council on the 2007 European agenda for culture. Then the subject matter is based on the Culture Open Method of Coordination in favour of the MS, which involves flexibility in organising cooperation in order to support the exchange of best practices. Maybe not enough if EU wants to candidate itself as general political subject: the cultural sector would require hard law actions.