ATRIUM: Heritage, Intercultural Dialogue and the European Cultural Routes

One of the key priorities of the Cultural Routes programme of the Council of Europe is intercultural dialogue. The resolution of the Council of Ministers no. 67 (2013) indicated that an overriding strategic goal of the Council was to “promote dialogue and understanding between majority and minority, native and immigrant cultures.” It linked this general principle to two other documents regarding strategic policy for the Council of Europe: the White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue entitled “Living Together As Equals in Dignity” (White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue, 2008) and the Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society, otherwise known as the “Faro Convention”  (Council of Europe Framework Convention, 2005). These general principles were adopted by the Council of Europe Advisory Forum of the Cultural Routes in Baku in 2014, whose closing declaration included an exhortation that the cultural routes should act as “vectors of intercultural dialogue” (Baku Declaration (2014). This paper will look at the way the ATRIUM cultural route has attempted to interpret and implement this strategic goal.