Committee on Culture and Education Ordinary meeting
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CULT European Parliament
Follow its sittingsKatarína Kaszasová
I'm happy to see him here in this room based in Brussels, which I will refer to as the central office. Strategic oversight is the responsibility of the school's board of governors, which comprises ministers of education from EU member states. The schools have their own financial regulation and staff regulation. To give you an idea of the size, the budget of the schools in 2024 was €440,000,000, most of which was staff costs. The bulk of the funding comes from the European Commission and other EU bodies, then there are contributions from the member states and fees paid by non-EU parents.
In total, for the last school year, there were nearly 30,000 pupils at these schools and over 3,000 staff. My presentation today will cover four areas: the background and framework of our annual report, the scope of our review, our observations and conclusions, and then our recommendations. I will start with the purpose of our review, along with some background details. This is important as our role is not the same as it is when we audit the EU budget, for example. Our mandate is defined by the school's financial regulations.
This requires us to provide observations on the provisional consolidated accounts and to publish our annual report together with schools' responses by November each year. Last year, we published our report on 25th November. It is a single report covering all 13 schools, plus the work of the central office. Our report contributes to the discharge decisions of both the school's board of governors and the European Commission. The school's financial regulation does not specify the type of audit opinion we should provide.
We have, therefore, chosen to perform a review designed to provide limited assurance of the school's consolidated accounts, a single set of accounts that reflect the activities of all 13 schools. Limited assurance provides a moderate level of confidence compared to the high level of confidence provided under reasonable assurance, which is more commonly used in audit engagements. Accordingly, our conclusion is expressed in a negative form, stating that nothing has come to our attention to indicate a material misstatement. To reach this conclusion, we review the consolidated accounts, individual accounts of eight schools and the central office, and the work of Deloitte, a private audit firm that audited five schools. For 2024, the eight schools we reviewed were Luxembourg's two schools along with those in Alicante, Frankfurt, Karlsruhe, Baiezema, and Bergen.
For 2025 audit, which is which we are currently working on, a new external audit firm, Grand Torten, will be auditing seven schools while we will handle the other six. However, we've also chosen to extend our work beyond just reviewing the accounts. This is because we think that we can add real value by doing so for the benefit of the management in the individual schools, at the central office, and for the board of governors and other stakeholders. So, also, it's not obligatory. We also carried out some compliance checks at the central office and six schools, focusing on areas of higher risk, and examining whether the relevant rules were being adhered to.
This part of our work covered a sample analysis of salary payments, recruitment procedures, payments to vendors, and procurement procedures, 74 payments in all. We also analyzed bidder participation in procurement procedures and the register of exceptions. However, it's important to stress that our compliance work does not constitute a fully fledged review, including a final opinion of the sort that we provide for the EU budget. No? No?
Now let me move to our findings relating to our work on consolidated accounts and our compliance review. Regarding consolidated accounts, I'm pleased to say that in line with the limited assurance that we aim to provide, nothing has come to our attention to lead us to believe that the consolidated accounts for 2024 were not prepared in all material respects in accordance with the international public sector accounting standards. While we found minor errors in the provisional consolidated accounts, such as a misclassification of capital investments and refunds, these were adjusted by management in the final accounts. Nonetheless, certain updates to the European School's accounting manual are needed. On compliance, our review helps the schools manage key processes effectively.
This year, as in the past, we found some recurring weaknesses which corroborate our findings from previous years. For example, we found the potential risk of overpayments of allowances to seconded staff due to insufficient verification of supporting evidence, and shortcomings in the verification of professional experience for recruited staff. We also found that there was a low level of competition in most of the procurement procedures organized by the schools we reviewed in 2023. For example, although the schools invited the required number of bidders, we found that for over a third of the procurements we reviewed, with a total value of €3,400,000, there was only one bidder. You would agree that effective procurement relies on competition.
If there is no competition, there is no guarantee that the schools are getting a good service or product for a good price. We also found two procurement procedures where evaluation criteria in tender specifications were unclear or non-measurable. This, in turn, can undermine the principle of equal treatment of bidders, as well as the transparency of the evaluation process. Finally, we found inconsistencies in how the noncompliant procurements were reported to the register of exceptions. And we noted an increase in procurement exceptions from 24 in 2023 to 43 in 2024, with an estimated total value of payments reaching €1,700,000 in 2024, which is almost double the equivalent figure for 2023.
Based on these findings, we made three recommendations. We recommend that the schools update their accounting manual, address low bidder participation in their procurement procedures, and improve data quality in the register of exceptions. I'm pleased to say that all three recommendations were accepted by the schools. Alongside these new recommendations, we also continue to monitor the implementation of previous recommendations. We found that six earlier recommendations had been fully or mostly implemented since our last review, which is a positive message.
So to close, I would like to take this opportunity to thank both the individual schools and the central office for the excellent constructive cooperation that we experience each year that we audit them. This greatly benefits our work, contributing to an efficient and effective review process. This good collaboration supports ongoing enhancements in the school's accounts, compliance, and internal controls. We are ready to answer any questions you might have. Thank you.
Nela Riehl
Thank you very much for this really interesting presentation. I will now give Mister Papandreu, the standing rapporteur on the European Schools System, the floor. You have the floor for three minutes.
Nikos Papandreou
Thank you very much, Miss Karo Kazarova. Karas Kazarova. I'm not watching it right. Okay.
Kazarova.
Nikos Papandreou
Kazarova. Thank you. I wasn't wearing my glasses. And, chair, we have to learn our languages better. So it's clear that the audit is very important to see where the European taxpayer's money goes.
So on that score, it's the right thing. And the good news is that you didn't find any serious infringements. There are some small things that need to be changed, but as you write in your report, they're doable. It's fixable. And, of course, we're talking about a school, and that's quite a bit of a burden on the whole administration to do things properly, but it seems they're doing things properly with some small things needed.
So I think I wanna take this opportunity to talk about what we might say is the elephant in the room, which, in my opinion, is that there's not enough money that we're spending on the schools of the total about 450,000,000, which sounds like a lot. But from my understanding, the quality of the teaching is going down for many reasons. One of the reasons is the part-time teachers are getting a very low salary, and so they prefer to go to other schools where they can get a better salary. Some of the language is uncovered. In general, it's being treated like an administrative branch of the parliament, but not really as an education center, and we need it to be centers of excellence.
Actually, we need to convince the member states to increase the money, and that's something that I hope all the shadow arbiters will do, because over time, it'll be less and less attractive. And people will say that this is a special school. You're lucky to have a school for your children, but we should also make it the lighthouse and give it as an example for the rest of Europe, that this is a European school, and all the schools should try and get to that level. So given all that, try to make this a lighthouse. It's, I think, it's time we consider a new resolution to follow-up on our previous recommendations, emphasizing the need for a greater budget.
And we're not talking about a lot of money. We're talking about anything from 12 to 15,000,000 more. That's a lot of money, but compared to the 400-plus, it is not a big percentage. Just to save the situation, because it'll be very sad if over time, the quality of the European schools goes down, and how will we be able to explain that to the people working here and to the world in general. And so, I count on the support of all the shadow operators to also bring this up in the budget committee, those who have that position, so that we can bring it in at least into the new multi-annual financial framework.
I know there are many demands on that, but this is crucial. And, of course, I'd like to thank Mr. Beckman who will be speaking next. We've had good collaboration. The court of auditors for your very clear and, I would say, happy presentation for us, and I look forward to continuing this discussion in our next debate in September. Thank you.
Nela Riehl
Mister Papandrea. I now give the floor to the standing shadow reporters, Manuel Ripa for the EPP, to begin.
Yes.
Manuela Ripa
Thank you very much. I'd also like to thank Madam Kasashova from the ECA for this report of the financial year 2024 for the European schools. And like the I will actually go into a little detail about your report because at first glance, it is a positive one, but that's only at first glance because you've stated that the accounts are generally correct and there are not any major issues. But clearly, the report does demonstrate some structural weaknesses that we need to take seriously, politically, because quite importantly, it's been stated this is about a lot of tax money. And so there's issues in terms of staff, and there were over increased payments.
And so I must ask, how difficult is it really to demand a certification and proof within a particular specific deadline, and then to check it? And why has that not been implemented since the last report? Also problematic is the lack of competition in terms of bidders. In many cases, there's only one or two bidders, and this is a real issue in terms of transparency and equality. When it comes to two criteria, we've seen also an increase in exceptions.
This all means that the internal control systems do exist, but they're not being implemented sufficiently. And so the report doesn't state any real crises in terms of the accounts, but a crisis in terms of the administration and the governing structure. And so I have the following question. How does the ECA assess the repeated breaches of transparency in terms of low bidder participation and the systematic breaches in terms of payments, especially in terms of staff? How is this a breach of the values and laws in terms of accounting? And how is it the case that the European schools have only partly implemented the suggestions of the ECA over many years?
And what role can the court play in order to secure better efficiency in terms of administration in the long term? How can we strengthen our audits if the cultural weaknesses remain in the long term? And so, in conclusion, this report shouldn't make us be satisfied, but it's a clear requirement for us to create more transparency within the European schools. Thank you. Thank you.
Nela Riehl
Mister Valtchev is not here. Mister Petrov is also not here, I believe. Mister Market had to leave as well. Nikos Papas is also not there. Madam Bovendig?
Ah, there you are. Okay. So, mister Stanik. Okay. Great.
You have the floor.
Good.
Stanik
Morning. I will speak Czech. Czech colleagues, we are all aware that the European schools play a major role in the wider European education space, which is why it is very important that they be managed efficiently with transparency and with credibility, both vis-à-vis the member states and vis-à-vis the European institutions. By way of introduction, I would like to subscribe to what the previous colleague from the EPP said, because the report is of high quality, but it does contain many warning signs, which should be telling us that we should be very careful here. I would like to thank the European Court of Auditors very much for their work and for today's presentation.
Speaker 11
Allow me a few brief comments as a shadow rapporteur for the Patriots for Europe. The report confirms that the accounts as a whole are in order. This is important. However, the quick question for us is to what extent this system is working well in practice. And here, we must not overlook certain conclusions.
Stanik
In terms of public procurement, there is very limited competition still, and there are too many procedures where there is only one bidder. The poor or low level of competitiveness in public procurement, which has been mentioned, is also unfair to member states. If we compare this with other sectors, then we see that the deficiencies are followed very strictly and procedures are being launched in such cases. So let us have a deeper think about this and let us have a deeper analysis of why there consistently seems to be a single bidder. It would also be very good if, in the future, this was not only about recommendations, but real corrective actions.
Speaker 11
Unfortunately, this is not an exception, but a repetitive trend, which does raise ground for a concern about the economy with which this money is being spent. Also, the verification of real practice, verification of various expenses and compensations, again, these are problems which are repetitive, persistent, so how to really correct them? And in terms of management, if there are tools which are not updated and also inconsistent systems for exceptions and the reporting, this means that there is no consistency in practice, and we need to handle this. There needs to be accountability. European schools are important.
Stanik
Their funding is important. We have heard a request from the rapporteur of an increase of 12,000,000 to €15,000,000, but we need to know what we are getting for this money. So thank you very much for your report. Thank you very much, also for the warning signals. And I trust that together, we will find a way of not only raising awareness, but also finding corrective steps.
Thank you.
Nela Riehl
Thank you very much. Missus Kasasova, you have three minutes to react to what you just heard.
Katarína Kaszasová
Thank you. Thank you very much for interesting comments and questions. I fully agree with the presentation about the elephant in the room because I'm a mom of a young lady who graduated from European schools a few years ago. And, I understand that it's not only a question of money, but hopefully, the budget could be increased. But it's also, there are many other factors including how member states support the schools that are based in their capitals, how, for example, schools are able to retain the best staff and others, but I think that it will be maybe explained in more detail by mister secretary general.
Regarding the question how difficult it is to deal with structural weaknesses, including staff certifications or lack of bidders, from our point of view as the external auditor, it's not difficult if the correct system is in place. On the other hand, it's important, and I stressed it at the beginning, that we are talking about the system that is composed of 13 individual schools, almost every school in other countries except for Belgium and Luxembourg, and they function also in different legal systems. So some kind of good balance between centralization of those activities that make sense to centralize and activities that could be performed at the local level is very important. And this is something, what I have to admit, that the central office and the team of secretary general has been working a lot over last period. For example, on April 25, they launched a new tool for invoicing parents.
In July the same year, new digital HR solution was standard. It means during next year, we will see if there is an improvement. And also, on October 25, a new public procurement management tool used by the commission was deployed in the central office. I think there is nothing to hide that many of these issues, also the European Commission itself has been fighting with. So what is important is that our role as external auditor is to review the financial statements.
And on top of this duty, we perform some compliance checks, but this is not a fully fledged review. Our findings and recommendations are basically a starting point for the board of governors of the European schools and the commission and potentially European parliament to think about, discuss, and to agree on next steps. It's not the role of the auditor to say how these problems we can navigate, but we are not decision makers. It's you. It's the board of governors.
It's the commission. Of course, it's not that I just cleaned my hands, and I understand your question, miss Stanik, but we need to bear in mind and not to mix these competencies. In addition, and it is also in our report, the schools and especially the activities of central office are under very strong and detailed overview by the internal audit of the European Commission, and also by the internal control capability unit directly inside, in the central office. It means our assessment, how the system works, is something in the middle, more on the positive side. There are the systems.
Systems have been changed and implemented as new, also thanks to our audit, but we need maybe year two, three to see the results. And this positive opinion is also based on regular interactions. And we review, for example, when we start our external audit, we review the internal audit reports of the commission. We speak with the internal control capability unit members just to better understand how they moved over the years. I hope I answered the questions.
Nela Riehl
Yes. Thank you very much. I can't see anybody wishing to take the floor or catch the eye. Sorry.
Katarína Kaszasová
Wait. I just missed one point about this low bidder participation, because I think it was one of the questions. We understand that, if there are more bidders, there is a higher probability that the outcome will be in favor of the schools and kids that are the users of all these services. Our analysis show that in terms of certain services, it's not easy. For example, when you would like to procure the canteen services, there are not so many companies.
Therefore, based on our discussion with the management of European schools, it's more about ensuring that tender documentation or call for expressing of interest is really delivered to many potential bidders and to remind them that there is a possibility to participate in the tender. It's not the excuse, but we know that certain services are not easy to procure, but we need to ensure that the schools did everything that was possible to ensure that there were of them.
Nela Riehl
So thank you very much. Anybody under catch the eye? That doesn't appear to be the case. So we can move straight on to the secretary general of the European Schools, mister Beckman, who is with us. So you have five minutes.
Go ahead, sir.
Andreas Beckmann
I switch now to English. Many thanks for giving us, missus Spitzer, who is the head of unit of our internal control capability, and myself, the possibility to react to the report of the court, but also the interventions of the honorable members of the parliament. For us, this is a moment to express, on one hand, gratitude and to provide reassurance to the court and to the MEPs. But I would also like to use the opportunity, and I thank the rapporteur, the standing rapporteur, mister Papandreou, for this as well, to raise some concerns and express some hope. The gratitude goes, first of all, to the honorable member of the court of auditors, miss Kasasova, and her team, mister Dolezal, for really, I think, a very good, transparent, and open cooperation.
We see you as critical friends of the European schools, and we really try to follow up all your recommendations, which we all have also accepted. I use the opportunity also to thank my colleagues, the directors of the European Schools who are authorizing officers by delegation, and their staff because they ensure sound financial management. Although we still have open issues and we will not lean back, we will address them. But I would like to thank my staff, both in the schools and in the office. And the governing body, the board of governors has given us for the second time in a row discharge with unity, also based on this report.
And this shows that we are improving, but it's also true we are not there. And this is my second part of the intervention. I would like, together with Lisa Spitzer, to provide you with some reassurance. I'm really convinced. If we are talking about European schools as lighthouses in the pedagogical area, we can only be reliable if we also base these lighthouses on sound financial management.
If we don't do it, we lose credibility, we lose reputation, and we undermine all our efforts in the pedagogical area. And just to also react to the interventions of MEPs. So.
Well, yes. The member of the court of auditors was very clear. It's quite difficult for us to attract a larger number of bidders, to encourage a large number of bidders to participate in the public procurement procedure. If you want to buy school furniture, there are a lot of secondary schools, so you do create a market. This is if you're an enormous school system.
So, but we're looking for school furniture for 13 schools in six member states. So this means that centralization is not always the solution. So we look more at regional calls for tender. And here, we are in very close coordination with the Court of Auditors. The problems of the allowances that you referred to, and you quite rightly pointed out, I think rightly said that it shouldn't be too difficult to get more information about these allowances.
But if you take a look at our salaries, it's made up of national salary, EU salary. And the people who work for us get allowances from the member state and from the EU. And not only the main employees and the staff, but also their partners. And all of this has to be proved, and it's not just a question of proving you're not getting allowance, but to the Greek or the German authorities, you have to have supporting evidence and request, etcetera, that you don't. You aren't receiving an allowance, so it's not all that simple.
Back to English.
Andreas Beckmann
Back, we will work on it. And you can see it also in the implementation of the open recommendation. Now give me still one minute to raise my concerns, and also to express my hope. Your resolution, you have referred to, madam chair, from 2023, was really an eye opener for many of us because it addresses our challenges but also our opportunities. You have said, as a parliament, we should become lighthouses, testbeds for innovation.
You also ask us to invest more in human resources, provide job security for locally recruited teachers, and address salary discrepancies between nursery, primary teachers, and secondary teachers. This has been taken on board in the action plan approved by the Board of Governors in April 24, and it is also expressed in our mission and vision, which was only recently approved in summer 25. However, these are still, unfortunately, to a certain extent, only papers. We could see less than four weeks ago, we discussed in the Board of Governors our draft budget '27, and we face really restrictions. And I will mention just three of them.
If we want to be innovative, we have to invest. But at the same moment, we have a 2% ceiling or restriction on all non-salary lines. But how can you invest in pedagogy? How can you become a lighthouse in Europe if you cannot really invest in the future? In fact, the 2% means cuts in the pedagogical area because our providers, be it Microsoft, be it others, they don't care about 2%.
So in fact, we have to reduce investments in the pedagogical area, and this is an obstacle. Another example, we want to promote digital competence and AI literacy, and we want to mitigate the risk linked to cybersecurity. But our IT staff is the same as before COVID, although the number of devices in schools, rightly so, has increased by more than 50%. But we don't get the means for additional posts or even funding of these posts from the Board of Governors. And finally, mister Papandreou has mentioned, it's a salary discrepancy.
We are the best the worst pupil in the classroom in Europe. The discrepancy is 24% between nursery, primary teachers, and secondary teachers. On EU level, it's 6.6. Just to reach the EU level, it would need an investment of 14 million, but the board of governors again was not ready to take even the first step. And let me be clear, this is disappointing, not only for me, but for the staff concerned.
We are not yet at risk, I would say, when it comes to the quality of our teachers. They are still excellent, but we have to be sustainable. And this was why I very much support your intervention, Mr. Papandreou. This step has to be taken. And now my hope, help us in the context of the MFA to address these structural issues.
And I count also on the commissioner, Seraphine, who oversees both these negotiations on the MFF, sorry, and the European schools. Many thanks, and sorry for exceeding my time, but I wanted to pass these messages.
Nela Riehl
Yes. Thank you very much. Missus Kasasovi, you have a couple of minutes for brief concluding remarks.
Katarína Kaszasová
Thank you, madam chair. I think there's almost nothing to add because today's presentation and the discussion and comments presented by rapporteurs and members of this committee show that this is a really important topic, and I hope not only for this committee, but for the European Parliament as a whole. So I would finish with one very nice sentence that I'm not the author of, but I saw it a few months ago when I visited the Philippines and Manila, and it was over the entrance of the school. And the text says, the school is the book in which is written the future of the nation. I think we can apply the same to your European schools and for the European Union.
Thank you.
Nela Riehl
That was very nice. Yes. That was a very nice way to conclude the debate. So thank you very much for your participation, Mr. Beckman as well.
The topic of the European school system belongs to one of the core competencies of the COLT Committee, also in terms of political oversight and monitoring, and we will continue to pay particular attention to the issues related to the European schools. I know that the standing rapporteur's team is very active on this file, so we look forward to further updates, including within the annual exchange of views on the European school system of the Cult Committee Plan for September. So thank you very much for coming along today, and goodbye. And we now move on to the next point on the agenda. Dear colleagues, the next point on the agenda is a presentation of the European Heritage Label by Mister Jose Manuel Fernandez Arroyo, deputy head of the Creative Europe unit of the Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture.
The European Heritage label, which is now 15 years old, is a flagship Creative Europe initiative, which designates sites, landscapes and monuments that hold significant importance in European history, culture and integration. It highlights and promotes a shared understanding of European history grounded in fundamental rights, democratic values, and pluralism. Following a very successful European Heritage Label Awards ceremony last week, 13 additional sites received the label, thereby bringing the total number of sites to 80. Mr. Jose Manuel Fernandez Arroyo, the floor is yours for 10 minutes.
José Manuel Fernandez Arroyo
Thank you so much, and thank you for having us here. It's really a pleasure to be there to talk a little bit about the European heritage label initiative that is part of Creative Europe, but the parliament is a fundamental part of it as we will see. So for us, it's really a good opportunity to talk about it altogether. So I will go directly to the to our first slide if we can pass it maybe. Yes.
Thank you so much. So, first, as the chair has been very keen to explain, but to give a little bit more of details about what it is an EHL site, I would like to remark that EHL sites are important because of their symbolic value, but not only because of this. I mean, it's not only about preserving architecture or about preserving beauty. It is about promoting the public engagement with this size and the awareness of what they mean. The EHL initiative is not about conservation.
So it's not an initiative based on giving money to sites to be preserved, but to give visibility to this size and to focus on reaching the people and to explain what it is, what it means, especially to the young audiences. So the EHL sites are about Europe and our shared history. Let me say that in this moment, we think that it's more important than ever to have this site with which explain to us where we come from, and, it provides us with a place to reflect where we can go because they are part of the shared values, of the shared history that we have as Europe. And, it can be from many years ago, and we can talk about monasteries, or Cluny monasteries, or the Agora in the ancient Greek that are sites. But we can talk also about intangible patrimony like the Kalawala in Finland or that industrial heritage sites or treaty signature sites.
So it is, all the history that we share from ancient times to these days, and we are very, very proud to say, I have to say, from this initiative that we think that it has an enormous value even more now than ever. So a little bit of practical things. The sites are selected in cycles of every two years. And the process comes with a first year where the size applies internally in the countries. And then the countries can select up to two sites every two years to present for the second round where a panel of independent experts will judge the candidate and will decide this panel of independent experts, and we will come to who nominates these experts later, decided on the sites.
And it ends up with granting the heritage label, and you have a very good example that was mentioned before a couple of weeks ago where we have the pleasure to have one of the members of the parliament giving some of these labels to the site. We had 13 new sites. That was a record. And we have achieved the number of 80 sites now nominated, which makes a quite impressive network and a very core group of sites and powerful group of sites that after all these years, it's quite an achievement. A little bit of history maybe, and then I can pass to the next, to the next one.
This EHL initiative, it is not something that I cannot say that we invented, but it comes from the countries. It started in 2006. If I remember well in Granada, it was an initiative sign there. But then in 2011, it was a joint initiative to make it, to give it another step to this, and it was created the EHL initiative with the legal basis that were approved then and with the nomination in 2013 of the first number of sites. And then we have arrived to 2026 with the fifteenth anniversary of the initiative with 80 sites nominated with the award of three new 13 new sites and with an inflection point for us because we think that it will be a good moment to refresh the legal basis of this initiative.
While we are not, there is no end date, to say so, for this legal basis, for the current legal basis. We all think that after all this time and with a lot of lessons learned, it will be a good moment to refresh this legal basis and to propose new ones without making any revolution, but without taking a lot of comments and improvements that we can discuss later. Some highlights about this, and I think that I have mentioned this already as is the anniversary, but is the solid basis of this initiative already about after this 15 years. We have 25 sites from 25 EU member states, and we appear, of course, to have all of them represented. We have this b annual selection, and there are two other points that I want to mention that are coming from the current legal basis.
It's a monitoring exercise every four years and an evaluation of the sites every six years. The last evaluation was in 2024. But now I jump to the next step of today, which is the revision of the current legal basis. And for this, we do not start with anything. On the contrary, we have a lot of material and a lot of lessons learned, and we talk a lot with our site.
But, also, we launched an evaluation of the action that was presented, and it was concrete in 2024. And all the conclusions, of course, will be taken into account in this revision. And we launch account for evidence and a public consultation that ended up in this February year. So now we are working to incorporate all this comment received from the stakeholders, from the size, from the relevant agents in the field of heritage, of course. And our plans is to come with a proposal from the commission and then for open discussion with ECO legislators, of course, if possible, by the quarter three of this year.
Some of the challenges that we want to tackle with this revision of the legal basis and taking into account the comments from the stakeholders is that the procedure can be a little bit more flexible and the selection process, the criteria. Now, we know what they'll understand better and what needs to be better explained, and, we will make incidents on this. The monitoring, we received comments that this will be more an accompanying process and helping them to further develop the initiative of the sites and their potential. And we think that this is a good thing to work together with the science. It is a growing initiative, and it has a lot of repercussion, but the visibility of this initiative can still improve to give more visibility to the sites.
And the sites also think that some more financial support will benefit them. And we are working on this also, but this has already started with implementation of EHL Bureau, which provides capacity building help to them and some grant for projects, etcetera. But this will also be included in the new legal basis. And finally, just to finalize, my time is almost over, just to say that the role of the parliament is in the formal role. This is the nomination of the experts.
Of course, the parliament is part of this initiative. And this is a quite important moment because it's the turn of the parliament to nominate the new experts, again, for experts for the parliament and for the next period of three years, if I'm not going confused. And we will expect this. And we will, of course, from the commission, make our role of supporting you, advising you if needed, and then we will manage our role. This is an independent panel.
We manage then the administrative part, the contracts, etc. But then the decision is on this panel that is nominated together with the commission, the committee of the regions, with the council, and, of course, of the parliament. I will stop here, but, of course, super happy to answer any questions that you may have. And thank you for this opportunity.
Nela Riehl
Yes. Thank you for that, very detailed overview. Thank you for your presentation. So the coordinators can now put questions. I don't know.
EPP, Mr. Dreyevsky, are you going to speak on behalf of the EPP?
Yes.
Very.
Bogdan Andrzej Zdrojewski
Briefly, obviously. But first of all, obviously, I am very attached to this particular label and initiative. I was Minister for Culture from 02/2014. We took a lot of important decisions. We had a meeting of Ministers of Culture when we had our Polish presidency in 2011, and that was when the decision was taken to partly modify the intergovernmental programme and turn it into a European programme.
And looking at the perspectives we have here and what's happened in the past, it's evolved very well. And I'm very satisfied to see that the projects are very different, very diverse. No kind of pattern or model has been imposed on what this should look like. The projects are assessed on their own merit. So, for example, we have buildings, monuments, or areas that were polluted or destroyed, monuments to very different, difficult times of history, or museums that are very well known.
And then, yeah, given this label, this award for very difficult work. And recently, there was an award given to Malta Hecke, the Catacombs. And the Catacombs, I didn't know about these. So every time the label and award is granted, it means these areas become well known and one can visit them and find out about them. So thank you for your efforts.
Thank you for a very good selection of experts who obviously have different ethical sensitivities. And thanks to this, the awards are rich and diverse. But obviously, we have to be careful to focus on the aspect of promotion and not have competition between the labels, because obviously every award is given to a site that has its own worth, its own values. And this is why we have such an interesting collection, and this should serve, therefore, as a platform for knowledge and information. And every award, every label is worth itself.
Thank.
Hannes Heide
Thank you very much for the presentation. The heritage label, I think, has a lot of potential, and not all of this potential has been tapped into yet. But the heritage label, well, I think our heritage is absolutely irreplaceable. We've heard a number of times that the initiatives that have been given the label haven't received financial support as such. But with this heritage label, is this going to become a brand where people know that European values and European history are conveyed?
We need to do some kind of publicity work to help? And to what extent are there central advertising or publicizing in terms of brochures to promote these initiatives? What's being provided? Is this outcome of a basis that can be used to do this? And then also another question.
We have 80 projects that have the label at the moment. The question is, is there a need for advertising a need for applications in areas that haven't been covered so far in this broad portfolio of heritage label bearers? Thank you. Thank you very much, miss. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank you for the presentation as well.
Zsuzsanna Borvendég
There was some very important information that I've gleaned from this. I've got a number of questions. We heard that the member states name the candidates and the places, and a body decides on them. What happens if there were to be a conflict, if member states interpreted the European values differently? It's not very well defined here.
And whose opinion would be conclusive in such a debate? And then secondly, among the criteria, we have inclusivity and diversity. How can you ensure that these modern sociological terms are not too anachronistic in terms of being linked to historical places? And then thirdly, we've heard that the parliament will evaluate the members of the bureau, but the parliament is a political body. And does politics have a place in this kind of body?
How can we ensure diversity? Are there members who would put forward conservative points or nationalistic points of view? And would they win out given that they were bringing the minority in the parliament and that the experts would then not be listened to as much? Mister Fernandez Adoe, you now have two minutes to answer the questions.
José Manuel Fernandez Arroyo
Thank you so much. And thank you for your questions. Super interesting. I'm really very happy to try to address all of them. I will start, thank you because we were honored to have, also your support in the ceremony and to know that, you are part of the history of these sites.
It is very nice to see. So thank you so much for the support. And I think that you have mentioned all the diversity of this site. It is a proof of the diversity also of the criteria that are taken into account by the members of the panels, and I will come later to answer these questions. But indeed, I can agree that more promotion of these sites, they are a hidden gem probably in Europe that we have to give more visibility to them.
And this is also to take into account in the next years, in the new legal basis, and we are on it. We take good note of this recommendation for sure, and we will try to make efforts in this sense, which I think that also goes in the line of the other question about how to exploit better the potential of these sites. Still a lot of work to do, but we have, taking already some good steps, and we have implemented an, what is called an EHL bureau, which is an office of secretariat that support all these sites that put them in contact between them so that they can have more synergies and for sure not to compete with between them because the one of the strengths of this site is what they mean together, in terms of history. Yeah? And they are collaborating.
They are also doing regional meetings so that in the regions, they can also collaborate and build things so that they can have more visibility. We have already looked for synergies with other initiatives, for example, with Discovery EU, but also with cultural good routes, with bike tours, etcetera, so that these sites are points of reference to visit and that are better known. But, still, I mean, we can exploit a lot more of possibilities in this sense. And they are starting to receive some financial grants, with projects through the bureau, and this will continue in the future years, especially to help them in capacity building. Then about the decision of the countries, the countries can take a decision or take the decision to present the Candida tours every year or every two years.
But there is a second step where this independent panel and their decision of the independent panel is final. I mean, we don't intervene on this. This decision is taken by all these experts that four of them will be nominated by the parliament, four of them by the council, and then four by the commission, one more by the committee of the regions. We always try to keep a balance of gender, geographical balance, etc. But let me say that they always look for these aspects of inclusion, of diversity.
50% of our sites are placed in rural areas. But this is also indeed something important to keep in mind always. And I think that the panel keep in mind when they are discussing. And about the diversity of sites, I can tell you that you can check the eighties? By now, we think that it represents from centuries to today, real religious sites.
We have many religious sites represented here, and they're very important, like the Cluny or the Sister Sensias that I have mentioned, but they are intangible, like this Kalabala song or poem in Finland, the Malta Catacombs, etcetera. I think that the diversity of the site speaks for itself, and this is something that we want to preserve because it is the richness of our history and our values. We cannot understand you without this. I will let you. I have 15 seconds.
Yeah. So, thank you. But if you have any other questions, we are happy to answer.
Nela Riehl
That's.
Some very nice concluding remarks. You have to have these sites to be able to understand European history. Thank you for your participation. The European Heritage Label is, of course, an important European initiative, but also an educational tool. I look forward to seeing the cult members back here at 2:30 PM.
We'll start with a public hearing this afternoon on the audiovisual policy framework and the future of creative freedom. So have a very nice lunch. Thank you for being here today.
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