The third meeting of the Public Interest Archives Consultative Committee

©Direction de la Communication - Stéphane Danna

The Public Interest Archives Consultative Committee (CCAIP), set up by Sovereign Order 8.569 of 25 March 2021, met for the third time on Monday, 11 December at the Ministry of State, under the chairmanship of Mr Jean-Charles Curau and in the presence of Mr Marc Vassallo, Secretary General of the Government, representing the Minister of State.

The activity report for 2023 of the National Archives Preparatory Team (MPAN) and the Central Records Office (SCADA), was presented to the members of the Commission.

The focus was on the following topics:

• Visits by executive departments and external bodies to support them and the cooperation initiatives they have launched.
• The collection policy for both public and private archives, which saw a two and a half times increase in entries between 2022 and 2023, along with the addition of remarkable collections.
• The creation of several thematic source reports to facilitate research.
• Digitisation policy.
• The presentation of the preliminary draft law on archives, prepared with the help of the Commission's team of experts, was at the centre of this session's agenda.
• The Principality of Monaco was represented for the first time at the quadrennial congress of the International Council on Archives (ICA) in October.
• As well as participating in the celebrations marking the centenary of the birth of Rainier III, notably through the MPAN's organisation of an exhibition at the Ministry of State entitled, 'The Prince's Vision: Jacques Rueff, Minister of State for Rainier III, 1949-1950.'

In addition to the presentation of the annual report, there was a fruitful exchange of views on a wide range of issues. Various recommendations were adopted by the Commission, including one to further modernise public and semi-public archives.

The meeting concluded with a luncheon at the residence of the Minister of State in honour of Edouard Vasseur, a new member of the CCAIP panel of experts. Edouard Vasseur is a palaeographer archivist, heritage curator and doctor of contemporary history. He holds the chair of contemporary institutional history, diplomacy and archivistics at the Ecole nationale des chartes.

He replaces his colleague from the Ecole nationale des chartes, Olivier Poncet, who has been an expert member since the creation of the former Public Interest Archives Consultative Committee in 2011. This partnership initiated with the Ecole nationale des chartes in 2011 will therefore continue with this appointment.