Slow Diplomacy: Greek Cultural-Property Agreement, Belatedly Released, Now in Effect

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's signature on the Memorandum of Understanding with Greece

The wheels of diplomacy grind very slowly.

The U.S.State Department has finally gotten around to releasing the full details of its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Greece, which for the next five years (renewable) will restrict imports into the U.S. of Greece's cultural property. As I reported here, that agreement was signed in July by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs Stavros Lambrinidis.

The MOU, which went into effect Dec. 1, "restrict[s] the importation into the United States of archaeological material representing the Upper Paleolithic Period (beginning approximately 20,000 B.C.) through the 15th century A.D., and of ecclesiastical ethnological material representing the Byzantine culture from approximately the 4th century through the 15th century A.D., ...unless the Government of the Hellenic Republic issues a license or other documentation which certifies that such exportation was not in violation of its laws."

On July 21, I had commented:

The detailed provisions of the new MOU are not currently on the State Department's webpage for cultural-property import restrictions. Its spokesperson, Elizabeth Gosselin, could not provide me with any details, beyond the fact sheet....

I think that under American law, any agreement that we have officially signed ought to be public information. There is already too much secrecy in how CPAC, a federal government advisory body, operates. Once a State Department decision regarding foreign cultural-property requests is finalized, the full extent of what has been agreed to should be promptly disclosed to the American public.

Yesterday, spokesperson Gosselin lobbed this into my inbox, along with a link to further details that are now posted on the State Department's website:

With an exchange of diplomatic notes on November 21, 2011, the agreement to protect Greece's cultural heritage...entered into force.

This new MOU contains some good news for American museums: It appears to incorporate some of the concessions that museum directors have been seeking, which Dan Monroe, president of the Association of Art Museum Directors, described to me in an interview last July (quoted in my previous post on this MOU, linked at the top of this one).

Specifically, the MOU not only requires Greece to take specific steps to safeguard its cultural heritage within its own borders, and also calls for that country's "consideration, as appropriate, of accommodating requests for extended loans [of cultural objects] beyond a five-year period to United States museums for cultural, educational, and scientific purposes through the existing renewal process, with assurances that a requesl for renewal will be given highest consideration."

What's more, the MOU calls upon the U.S. Government to "establish an appropriate webpage with links to the websites of Greek museums, for the purpose off fostering interchange among peer institutions and other interested parties." This seems in line with the "reciprocity" that Monroe and other museum directors have been seeking.

It remains to be seen whether this is truly the start of productive future collaborations, or merely lip service.

The State Department's summary of the agreement, on its website, is here. The full text of the new Memorandum of Understanding is here. A very detailed list of the types of objects covered under the new agreement, published Dec. 1 in the Federal Register, is here.