European Parliament adopts €2.5 billion Creative Europe programme for 2021-2027

By Emmanuel Legrand

The European Parliament has approved in plenary session the EU’s new culture programme, Creative Europe, which will inject €2.5 billion in Europe's cultural and creative sectors between 2021-2027.

  This is EU’s biggest ever financial commitment to the cultural sector, with a budget almost doubled compared to 2014-2020 (€1.4bn). Parliament and the Council of Europe had agreed on a €2.5 billion budget for 2021-2027 in December 2020.

  The new Creative Europe funds will initially be invested to help art and culture recover from the effects of Covid-19, according to Members of the European Parliament. The programme, which includes the MEDIA programme for Europe's AV sector, will have a greater focus on music, inclusivity and promotion of female talent than the previous programme.

Support for the live music sector

  "Alongside the significant increase in funding, MEPs secured greater focus on inclusion, on support for contemporary and live music sectors that are among those hit hardest by the pandemic, and higher co-financing rates for small-scale projects," said the Parliament in a statement.

  Many MEPS insisted that culture and art deserved even more of the EU financial support in the future. “The new generation of the programme has been developed with two important objectives in mind: firstly, the safeguarding, development and promotion of European cooperation on cultural diversity and heritage. Secondly, to increase the competitiveness and economic potential of the cultural and creative sectors, in particular the audio-visual sector," said the rapporteur Massimiliano Smeriglio (S&D, IT).

A better-funded programme

  Chair of the Culture and Education Committee Sabine Verheyen (EPP, DE) (pictured, below) said the "significantly better-funded programme recognises the added value of culture to our European way of life and is a first step towards helping it stand up to the challenges of globalisation and digitalisation.”



  The programme has been already approved by the Council and will enter into force immediately after being published in the official journal of the EU. The new Creative Europe enters into effect from 1 January 2021.

MEDIA gets the largest share

  Creative Europe is divided into three different strands:

  > The largest share of Creative Europe (€1.4bn or 58%) will go to the MEDIA programme to support the development, promotion and distribution of European films and audiovisual works within Europe and beyond.

  > The CULTURE strand (33%) will support cross-border cultural and creative projects in the form of cooperation (networks, platforms, innovation projects) between organisations and professionals in areas such as music, books and promotion of European literature, architecture, as well as the EU Cultural prizes and initiatives.

  > A third, cross-sectoral strand (9%), will support for the first time the news media sector, promoting media literacy, pluralism, press freedom and quality journalism, and helping the media to better address the challenges of digitalisation.

  Creative Europe also supports: European Heritage Label, European Heritage Days, European prizes for music, literature, heritage and architecture, European Capitals of Culture.