Anne Bergman-Tahon participated in Readmagine 21 during the session about reading policies in Europe.
Bergman- Tahon after studying medieval history (at Brussels University) and Copyright Law (at Brussels University an Kings College London) worked in public relations and journalism before joining the FEP where she became Director in 2004.
Anne Bergman-Tahon defended the role of national governments on the reading promotion and the positive effects of all sorts of measures to boost the demand for books. She reflected on the kind of policies that would be interesting from an European level.
Bergman_Tahon remembered the famous words by Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union: ‘If I were to do it again from scratch, I would start with culture’. This quote would legitimize the EU, spreading culture and supporting culture is something that is being done. However she thinks that the book industry was the poorest CCI from the EU.
Bergman-Tahon stressed the fact that 73 million Europeans lack reading skills; she consider crucial that the EU should focus on this challenge, specially now in the context of an information society. The EU programs should finance more surveys but policies are much more problematic, because the European administration has a subsidiary role.
Instead of a straightforward approach that may be asked for she believes that Brussels can encourage reading policies. She defends that there is a chance for EU funding support for national campaigns, best practices and cooperation, research, events or the educational field.
