IT IS SIGNIFICANT THAT THE FINAL ACT OF THE EUROPEAN SECURITY Conference, which was designed to promote the expansion of cultural exchanges, did not ay any special attention to the very institutions which are best fitted to achieve that expansion. The centres, which are only one instrument among many, could be an important stage in the development of cultural relations because they are probably the best-known and the most permanent form of cultural exchanges. But such was the lack of consensus among the signatories that no mention was made of them in the final Act. The debates were in fact marked by a violent disagreement between the USSR and France. Both advanced arguments which corresponded more to the ‘national’ cultural tradition than to the ideological cleavage in Europe today. Those who took part in the negotiations were aware of the abstruseness of the texts. They were therefore able to search out in the final Act the compromise which had been agreed on but which had been so watered down that it is difficult to see to what it refers. For example: ‘The participating States express their intention … to envisage other appropriate measures which would permit where necessary by mutual agreement among interested parties the facilitation of access to their respective cultural achievements in particular in the field of books’.