After more than 50 years of cooperation policies, we can today affirm that the process of development of a community is closely intertwined with its culture. The success of any development policy depends on recognizing and considering the principles of cultural diversity.

This approach is clearly inspired by the progress on this matter that, during these last years, has taken place in the international scene. The UNDP Report on Human Development of 2004, Cultural Freedom in a Diversified World, recognizes, for the first time within the UN system, the incidence of the cultural dimension in human development. The report also acknowledges the cultural diversity characterizing the different societies, and states that democracy and equitable growth are not enough to reach a holistic development, but that multicultural policies recognizing the differences and defending diversity and cultural freedom are also necessary. In that sense, allowing the peoples to communicate in their own language, to practice their own religion and to participate in the formation of their own culture are part of these multicultural policies.

The past work of the international instances around cooperation and cultural diversity takes shape in the adoption, in October of 2005, of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The Convention's introduction explicitly stresses that cultural diversity is one of the main drivers of sustainable development for communities, emphasizing its importance for an integral realization of the human rights and fundamental liberties proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We should also bear in mind that the UNESCO Convention highlights the specificity of cultural goods and services as elements carrying identities, values, and meanings, which places culture at the heart of any sustainable social and political project.

Concerning the EU, the UNESCO Convention negotiations were undertaken in close common coordination, creating bonds that later, and thanks to the decisive impulse of numerous cultural organizations of the European civil society, led to the 2007 European Agenda for Culture. The European Agenda and the subsequent work of several Presidencies have hinted the way to go in order to promote cultural diversity and to take advantage of the potential of culture and its relation towards creativity, economic development and governance. The Spanish Presidency wants to contribute to one of the strategic targets established by the European Agenda: the enhancement of culture in the Union's external relations, and, in particular, in the common European development cooperation.

For this reason, we want to take over from the successful Colloquium "Culture and Creativity, vectors for development", which was organized by the European Commission and the ACP countries (Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific) in April 2009, and resulted on the adoption of the "Brussels Declaration". Spain now proposes to further expand the EU's cultural development cooperation with the organization, together with the European Commission, of an International Seminar in Girona, on the 4th and 5th May 2010.