The Kansai region is Japan’s cultural heartland and so I am delighted to see that the 13th Osaka European Film Festival is not just showcasing some of the very best of European film, but includes a number of other cultural and art-related events in its extensive programme. While the event gives the discerning Kansai public the chance to watch contemporary European film and view modern European art, the presence of actors and filmmakers at a number of special screenings and discussions will enable them to further their understanding and appreciation of the European Union by directly interacting with some of its leading cultural figures.

The European Union’s creative and media business industries are a vital part of the European economy, and together form one of its fastest-growing sectors. European Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding said recently: "Europeans have the creativity and the capacity to produce content in new formats as well as traditional ones." The European Commissionﾕs wholehearted commitment to this is shown by its well-funded support for such initiatives as the eContentplus programme, designed to make digital content more accessible, usable and exploitable right across the European Union, and the MEDIA Plus Programme, which, with a budget of 450 million, focuses on the training of professionals; the development of production projects and companies; the distribution and promotion of cinematographic works and audiovisual programmes; and support for film festivals.

Further buttressing the European Commissionﾕs commitment to the cultural sphere are the proposed goals for a new MEDIA programme to be introduced next year. MEDIA 2007 will place equal importance on preserving and enhancing European cultural diversity and its cinematographic and audiovisual heritage, guaranteeing its accessibility for European citizens and promoting intercultural dialogue; increasing the circulation of European audiovisual works inside and outside the European Union; and strengthening the competitiveness of the European audiovisual sector in an open and competitive market.

It is a sign of the continuing rude health of the European film industry that so many of the films that will be having their Japanese premiere in Osaka this year will be accompanied by those who have in some way been responsible for their creation, from British director Dave McKean ("Mirrormask") and German musician Alexander Hacke ("Crossing The Bridge") to representatives of the newly acceded European Union Member States such as Polish director Dorota Kedzierzawska (ﾒJestemﾓ) and Slovenian director Jan Cvitkovic ("Gravehopping").

I am also very pleased to see that there will be a retrospective of films from the Czech Republic, which like Poland and Slovenia acceded to the European Union in 2004, and of childrenﾕs animation from Croatia, which though not yet a member of the European Union has begun the accession process following the official launch of negotiations in October 2005.

This year there are two anniversaries that show different aspects of the long history of relations between Europe and the Kansai region. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of sister-city ties between Osaka and Milan, this yearﾕs honorary chairperson Adriana Asti, who starred in Luchino Viscontiﾕs award-winning epic "Rocco e i suoi fratelli", about a woman and her four sons who move to Milan to try to better themselves, will appear at a special screening of the film. And reaching back 20 times as far is the documentary "Javier", about the life and times of Saint Francis Xavier, the Spanish missionary who was born in 1506 and who was the first person to try to convert the Japanese to Christianity during his two-year sojourn in Western Japan (including Kansai) in the mid-16th century.

By bringing the past into the present, the Osaka European Film Festival shows the breadth and depth of the ties between Europe and Kansai, ties that the European Commission is actively seeking to increase, last year establishing the second EU Institute in Japan, at Kobe University, in pursuit of this aim.

On behalf of the European Commission, I would like to wish the organisers of the Osaka European Film Festival every success for this year’s event.