– Culture for All

EIDD Annual Conference, 12-13 May 2005

Final Act

The participants in the International Conference “Culture for All”, held in the German Federal Government Press and Visitor Centre in Berlin, on 12-13 May 2005,

• Reiterating the right proclaimed in Article 27.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, which reads: 

“Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”,

together with its repetition in Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966;
• Referring to the United Nations Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities, adopted by the General Assembly in 1993;
• Considering the European Council Resolution on the Accessibility of Cultural Infrastructures and Cultural Activities, adopted on 6 May 2003;
• Welcoming the position adopted in the European Constitution, Section 3, “Culture”, Article III-280;
• Having studied the state of the art of progress in the application of Design for All to several specific sectors of Culture:

1) Cultural Heritage – Access to Buildings, Nature Reserves and Artefacts;
2) Urban Environments and Public Transport in a Cultural Context;
3) Cultural Tourism and Marketing;
• Appreciating the vital importance of a seamless approach to access to both the contents and the containers of culture, both physical and virtual, because a society in which culture remains the preserve of a chosen few is an insecure and unhealthy society;
• Concerned by the lack of attention paid both in the original and in the revised version of the Lisbon Agenda to culture as a potential source of wealth for the European economy;
• Convinced of the significance of Design for All as a tool for achieving a thriving society based on human diversity, social inclusion and equality and reiterating the principles enshrined in EIDD Stockholm Declaration©, adopted on 9 May 2004;
  1. Declare that Design for All can provide concrete approaches for designing both the contents and the containers of culture to be more accessible for everyone;
  2. Invite all social, economic, political and cultural organisations, both private and public, at local, regional, national, continental and international levels, to make every effort to factor the theory and practice of Design for All into all cultural events, products and programmes as a horizontal, interdisciplinary practice;
  3. Call on the European institutions to create funding headings, both under the forthcoming Seventh Framework Programme and elsewhere, to be tailored specifically to building on Europe’s rich cultural heritage as an increasingly important source of wealth for an inclusive European society and economy;
  4. Undertake to assist EIDD in establishing a European Standing Conference on the Implementation of Design for All in Culture, to meet once every four years and act as a forum for collecting best practices from the widest possible range of actors in the design and culture communities and showcasing them to interested audiences from all over the world;
  5. Commit to publishing and disseminating this Final Act to their own communities.

This Berlin Act has been sent to:

• The European Commissioner for Culture
• The Council of Europe
• UNESCO
• The leaders of the political groups in the European Parliament
• National Ministers of Culture
• European Cultural Capitals
• National heritage organisations.


Berlin, 13 May 2005

• Berlin Act Culture for All 2005 (PDF)