A European Culture Centre is a structuring cultural project related to intercultural meeting of young people and it is also the implementation of actions carried out to reinforce the consciousness of appurtenance to Europe, by developing a process of European integration.

Launched in 1989 as an association, this initiative is inscribed within a project of restoration and development of the Royal Abbey of Saint Jean d' Angély (France) from the point of view of an education about Europe of young Europeans.

the royal abbey of saint jean d'angély

Photo F. Cosson

Since 1989, this Royal Abbey has been sheltering the European Cultural Centre Santiago de Compostella. Founded in the ninth century, rebuilt in the fourteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries (because of several destructions), then given up, it is classified as Historic Monument and remains the most remarkable architectural ensemble in Saint-Jean d'Angély, a city that knew how to preserve its medieval charm.

Located on the Way registered in the World Heritage List by UNESCO, also the first cultural route of the Council of Europe, the building still constitutes a major stop towards Santiago de Compostella. Since its origins, the abbey has been resolutely open to a European dimension. Since 1989, the Centre has been giving it a new breath by rehabilitating it as place of history, culture and exchanges, suitable to arise a "conscience" of European citizenship.

From 1989 to 1997, the restoration of convent buildings was carried out according to the concept and the needs of the European Cultural Centre : lodgings, restoration, rooms for conferences, meetings, work, art workshops... The Centre deals with the animation and valorisation of the place, to such an extent that today the Centre and the abbey are associated in spirit and tend to merge.

european dimension in culture and education

In consonance with the history of the site, the preliminary draft is to conceive, organise and develop meetings of European culture and citizenship. It is based on the rich mediaeval set of themes and it has as constant concern the need for addressing young Europeans of today and for contributing to make them actors in a Europe in becoming. The topic of the Middle Ages was quite naturally selected in direct relationship to the architectural environment of Saint-Jean d'Angély.

Photo MTP

It is moreover a significant period in the history of Europe and knowing is at the same time structuring and unifying. It reveals constant trans-histories but it invites, as any historical method, to take the retreat necessary to apprehend evolutions, our modernity and our daily lives.

Accompanied by their teachers or trainers, young people are thus accommodated to take part in an innovative and original pedagogy based on interculturality, artistic practices and meetings, exchange with speakers who are specialists in the approached topics. Open to the inhabitants of Saint-Jean d'Angély, the sessions are part of a dynamics of local, cultural and economic development. Since the change of the abbey into a European Cultural Centre, the creation of local jobs and the economic repercussions on various activities are convincing testimonies.

In addition to trinational meetings of young Europeans, the European Cultural Centre, since its beginning, has organised training courses and meetings for trainers and officers responsible for European projects. As an example, in October 2000, the ECC co-organised, with the European Institute of Cultural Routes, the conference Cultural Values of European Citizenship, held in Santiago de Compostella, then European cultural Capital.

Photo ECC St Jean

Since its creation, the European Cultural Centre in Saint-Jean d'Angély received:

• more than 7.000 young Europeans,
• hundreds of teachers from secondary and high school,
• actors in the construction of Europe,
• craftsmen, artists...

All come from Great Europe: Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Poland Slovakia, Sweden, Czech Republic, Romania, Switzerland, Ukraine and others to come as well...