Culture in external relations and cooperation between Europe and Egypt

Abstract

International relations can be reviewed from different perspectives. One of them is through culture. In general, a lecture and an analysis of it from this specific point of view has been neglected, attracting much less attention comparing to other issues, like the political science, the international law, or trade and commerce. The cultural perspective offers a mirror of the reality and can contribute to a better understanding of the external relations and on what is happening at other levels, usually considered as more relevant in the foreign policies and the traditional diplomacy, like politics, economic or military issues. At the same time, this cultural perspective needs a transversal focus to offer a real insight and overview of the actual scope, due to the multifaceted feature of culture considered in its broad approach. The international presence and the role of culture within the bilateral relations is conditioned by the definition of the external cultural policies and the priorities and strategies in its bilateral relations with third countries. Sometimes the external policies can have a close link with the internal cultural policies as well, being a projection of the internal priorities in the international context. The institutional structure and the competences of the different institutions can also influence in the role of culture in the bilateral relations of a specific country. Aside of that, there are other relevant factors that can be determinant in the bilateral relations with an specific country, like the historical background or the bilateral political and commercial relations, among others. Culture in the context of the international relations and cooperation between Europe and Egypt includes from the institutional level, the bilateral and multilateral relations of the European Union, and its 28 Member States at an individual level as well. Otherwise, some of these European countries have had a long presence, historical ties, and maintain some economic interests in Egypt. In this context, the different cultural policies are embedded in the external actions of the bilateral cultural relations and cooperation, where the cultural projection is a component of the cultural diplomacy as a form of soft power. The present research has as primary objective to get a deep inside in the bilateral relations, and the identification of some quantitative indicators and qualitative aspects of the European bilateral relations from the public sector, and makes a detailed analysis of which is the present situation of culture in the context of the international relations with a strategic country of the Arab region like Egypt. Getting an insight into the different facts, parameters and indicators allows to identify the different exogenous and endogenous factors which can have a determinant role, jointly with the explicit and implicit objectives, and other elements to consider, including priorities, strategies, instruments and activities. Actions taken into consideration are those from the European Union, and from some of its Member States, which are reviewed and compared in a systematic way. The research takes as case study five of the European countries, the most populated, and several specific fields. It starts checking the way how each individual country is presenting its external cultural policy in the official web, and followed by the cultural bilateral relations with Egypt. Then is verified the role of the national cultural institutes, the archaeological cooperation, the higher education, the research and scientific cooperation, the presence of culture in the cooperation to development and the media. Finally it is verified the cultural presence in the European Union's through actions and initiatives in Egypt, and checked how the individual cultural bilateral relations of the selected countries fit together with them. The result offers a broad and comprehensive perspective of the presence of culture in international relations and cooperation in the particular case of Egypt. The analysis carried out allows concluding an insufficiently structured place of culture in the European external relations and cooperation with Egypt, the missed coordination among the different actors involved, the individual interests, and some incoherencies as well. The different sources and bibliography consulted are in different languages: Catalan, Spanish, French, and English. The Arab sources have been consulted when published or translated into some of these four languages.