<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, opened the Mondiacult 2025 conference this Monday in Barcelona, the largest global gathering of Ministers of Culture. He warned that “culture can never be neutral or indifferent to what happens in the world” because it represents a “commitment to freedom, dignity, memory, and, of course, peace.”</strong></h4> More than 160 ministerial delegations from around the world gathered this Monday at the Barcelona International Convention Center (CCIB) to kick off this World Conference. It was inaugurated by the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, along with the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez; the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares; the Secretary of Culture of Mexico, Claudia Curiel de Icaza; the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Salvador Illa; and the UNESCO Deputy Director-General for Culture, Ernesto Ottone. “Culture is an open dialogue, always unfinished, between people, between continents, between generations,” Sánchez stated during the inauguration of Mondiacult 2025, organized by UNESCO and the Government of Spain. This event, which will bring together ministers from 194 countries, artists, researchers, and civil society representatives until Wednesday, October 1, with the common goal of recognizing culture as a global public good and making it a sustainable development goal. “Culture can never be neutral or indifferent to what is happening in the world,” the Prime Minister continued. “I say this because I know there are those who ask culture not to be a nuisance, to limit itself to entertainment. Those who do so simply ignore the fact that culture is, above all, a commitment to freedom, to dignity, to memory, and, of course, a commitment to peace,” he added. “Culture is as necessary as, for example, clean air, dignity, equality between men and women, or, simply, freedom. It is the story we share and it is the condition for building a more just and humane world,” he concluded. At the same event, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, called for the preservation of culture “as a way of defending freedom, humanity, and peace, in the face of violence and closed societies” and highlighted the importance of the new Culture and Development Strategy of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), which will be presented during Mondiacult 2025, “because culture is not a complement to development, but rather a fundamental human right and an engine for fair and equitable growth.” For his part, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, affirmed that “culture is, and must be, a transformative force that defends sustainability, cohesion, and peace” and, therefore, “must be a foundation upon which to restart the global conversation, looking reality in the eye, at everything that is happening to us: the devastation of natural resources, the climate crisis, the threat to biodiversity in all its forms, inequality, poverty, fear, domination, wars, and genocide.” <h5><strong>First to be held outside Mexico</strong></h5> The main objectives of the conference, the world's largest event on cultural policy, are to promote culture as a fundamental pillar for sustainable development (advocating for its inclusion as an independent goal in the United Nations Post-2030 Agenda), serve as a platform for countries and experts to define the global cultural policy agenda for the coming years, and strengthen cooperation to improve cultural information systems and, consequently, public policies at the global level. At the end of Mondiacult 2025, the Barcelona Declaration will be adopted, which will set the guidelines for cultural policies for the next decade. Agreements are also expected to strengthen international cooperation and improve working conditions in the cultural sector. This is the first time the Mondiacult Conference has been held outside of Mexico, host of the 1982 and 2022 conferences, following the bid presented by Albares and the then Minister of Culture and current Ambassador to UNESCO, Miquel Iceta. The 2022 conference adopted a Ministerial Declaration recognizing culture as a global public good and a human right and calling for its inclusion as a specific goal in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Six areas for urgent action were also identified: cultural rights, culture in the digital age (including artificial intelligence), the integration of culture into education, the economy of culture, the cultural dimensions of climate change, and cultural heritage in crisis (trafficking and destruction).
