Dear lutenists
Following the Italian government's acceptance of the main points of our
petition, a meeting took place in Brussels at the EU level. After a long and
technically difficult discussion the follwing results were achieved, as
described here in a message from the petition organisers. The organisers
therefore wish to thank once again all those who signed or supported the
petition (see their message below):
Regards
Anthony
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Dear friends and signatories of the European petition,
We have finally received wonderful news from Brussels, with all the
details that we want to tell you. Thanks to the interest shown by Mr. Rinaldi
and Mr. Berlato, Members of Parliament, our petition has resulted in two
parliamentary questions which, together with the echo given by the press to our
case, and the active support of leading personalities in the field of Early
Music, attracted the attention of senior officials in the European Union,
particularly those in the Department of Food and Animal Health.
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These officials understanding the urgency of the matter, made themselves
available in order to set up a Technical Commission, on the issue of
safeguarding the Art of String Making, with the firm intention of confronting
and resolving the problem once and for all.
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In the committee were present: Matjaz Klemencic Sign (Policy Officer
for Animal health - European Commission, Health and Consumers,
Directorate-general), Martial Plantady (Legislative Officer - Food hygiene,
Alert Systems and Training, European Commission health and consumers,
Directorate-general) Mimmo Peruffo (Stringmaker and researcher), Dmitry
Badiarov (Luthier and musician) Geert Robberechts (La Petite Bande, manager),
Saïd El Khadraoui (Belgian MEP).
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Thanks to these contacts with EU representatives who are directly
concerned in law making, we have been able to obtain strong guarantees which
represent the first-ever recognition of the existence of the trade
category of String makers at the European level and the first comprehensive
legislative protection of their work. Very briefly, the contents of the
measures which will be released in the coming months are as
follows:
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1) harmonization of the rules governing the exchange and / or import of
raw material for string-makers (beef gut in salted strips)
inside and outside the European Union;
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2) establishment of a production unit of high quality raw material
under EU protection in European territory. This unique center will provide the
raw material required to support the production of all string makers in Europe
and will be backed up by appropriate incentives, both economic and
technical;
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3)the resolution of a specific and simplified health regulation
established for European string making companies (which are still required to
acquire the status of Authorized Technical Plant).
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We, the administrators of this page feel very satisfied both with the
achievements of the petition, initially for string making in Italy, but now for
string making in the whole of the EU. We therefore wish to thank you again, as
we did on the previous occasion, for your active participation in promoting our
petitions and we encourage you to continue spreading the culture of the String
Making Art, promoting all moves in its favour and freely informing us about any
new initiatives through our facebook page or our newly created blog "Amor
Cordis!" (http://amorcordis.blogspot.com/) which aims to be a virtual platform
for collecting any new cultural data on the topic of historical gut strings.
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http://amorcordis.blogspot.com/2011/12/amor-cordis-uno-spazio-culturale.html
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The European petition is therefore officially closed starting from today,
Tuesday, December 13 at 22.45, with 2584
signatures.
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
