CULTURE AND MIGRATION

120 Culture and migration: a path towards cultural integration of refugees and migrants A number of national court decisions – from superior courts in the UN, the Republic of Ireland and the US – confirm more generally that the sovereignty (power) of a state includes control of the “keys to its ancient history”. Although it may be that a norm which would require the return of the Parthenon sculptures has only crystallised recently, a century or two after Elgin’s looting, it nevertheless entails an obligation today to return the looted property. 205 3. The Parthenon sculptures must be returned to Greece according to the family reunification, applied in a reverse form. For the past 20 years, family reunification has been one of the main reasons for immigration into the EU. It is an entry channel enabling those who already reside legally in a Member State (referred to as sponsors) to be joined by their family members. Finally reunification helps to create socio-cultural stability, facilitating the integration of third-country nationals residing in EU Member States, thus promoting economic and social cohesion – a fundamental EU objective. The Directive on the rights to family reunification establishes common rules for exercising the right to family reunification in 25 EU Member States (excluding the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark). It determines the conditions under which family reunification is granted, establishes procedural guarantees and provides rights for the family members concerned. 206 As mentioned above, Acropolis and its monuments was listed in 1986 as a World Heritage Site, because these masterpieces form the greatest architectural and artistic “complex bequeathed by Greek antiquity to the world”. 207 “They are not statues, they are integral parts of a unique building, the most famous in the world…” 208 . 209 Reuniting the sections of the frieze that were ripped down from the Parthenon columns by Lord Elgin’s workmen with other sections of the frieze which survive in the New Acropolis Museum, custom-built to receive the sculptures and to display them under a glass roof that lets in the blue of the Attic sky above the Parthenon, would be akin to putting together the torn pieces of an ancient photograph, allowing us to see, through the art of the sculptor Phidias, 205. G. Robertson QC, Prof. N. Palmer QC, A. Clooney “The Case for Return of the Parthenon Sculptures”. 31 July 2015, p. 106. 206. European Commission – Migration and Home Affairs. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/ home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/legal-migration/family-reunification_en [30.01.2020]. 207. See Introduction. 208. F. Harrison: “Give Back the Elgin Marbles”. The Nineteenth Century, December 1890, at 980- 987. [As quoted in G. Robertson QC, Prof. N. Palmer QC, A. Clooney“The Case for Return of the Parthenon Sculptures”. 31 July 2015, p. 58.] 209. G. Robertson QC, Prof. N. Palmer QC, A. Clooney “The Case for Return of the Parthenon Sculptures”. 31 July 2015, p. 58.