SPK supports Europe-wide import regulation for cultural property from non-EU countries - Parzinger: Important instrument against illegal trade
Press release from 01/18/2017
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation welcomes the European Commission's procedure to create an EU-wide import regulation from non-EU countries. Foundation President Hermann Parzinger explains: "The SPK supports such a further instrument for the sustainable prevention of trade in illegal cultural artefacts and actively campaigns against such illegal trade. It does so both scientifically and with practical measures, such as the ILLICID project launched in 2015. This project is researching the dark field of illegal trade in cultural property in Germany. Until now, there have been hardly any reliable figures on the extent of the trade. As a result, it has not been possible to develop effective strategies to combat crime. However, international organisations consider profits from the illegal trade in cultural property to be an important pillar of organised crime."
ILLICID's co-operation partners are the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (SIT), Darmstadt, and GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Mannheim. The three-year joint project is being coordinated by Prof Dr Markus Hilgert, Director of the Museum of the Ancient Near East at the National Museums in Berlin. ILLICID is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research with a total of 1.2 million euros. UNESCO is a partner in the project. Associated partners include the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Customs Criminal Police Office in Cologne.
Hermann Parzinger continues: "Germany is currently a key market and transit state in the illegal trade in cultural artefacts. The amendment of the German Cultural Property Protection Act has brought about a significant improvement in the control of cultural property on import. The obligation of the trade to demonstrate that the cultural property on offer has been legally imported, combined with proof of the origin of the object, is essential."
The Foundation also cooperates with UNESCO in the fight against the illegal trade in antiquities from Iraq and Syria. The cooperation agreement was signed in 2015. The foundation supports UNESCO's #UNITE4HERITAGE awareness campaign. The aim is to sensitise the public to the crimes of illegal antiquities trafficking. This is the only way to reduce the number of buyers of looted cultural artefacts and stop the illegal trade in cultural property.