EU MONITOR: The EU invests very little in culture but the results are visible

• The  European  Commission  proposed  in  May  2018  to  continue  implementing  the Creative  Europe programme in the next budgetary period 2021-2027 with an envelope of 1,85 billion euros. Should the Member States agree, it would mean an increase of 26,5 percent compared to the current budget (2014-2020). Most of the money should go as usual to the audiovisual part of the programme (MEDIA), with emphasis on distribution of European films outside their country of origin. In the „culture“ part of the programme the draft mentions as priorities music, publishing, cultural heritage and architecture.

The European parliament has broadly welcomed the Commission  proposal  but  insisted  that  the  budget  of Creative Europe should be doubled compared to the current programme, arriving at 2,9 billion euros. It also stressed that the Commission should do more to collect data and evaluate in more depth the impact of the programme. The interest of the ongoing dialogue about the final shape of the programme is obviously limited, as culture is only a marginal topic in EU policy making, far away from its main concerns. Culture is a fully national competence, and there  are  no  proposals  or  plans  to  change  that.  The European Commission has the mandateto coordinate some cooperation in specific areas agreed by member states and to implement the above mentioned programme. Even with the  proposed  increase  by  nearly  one  third,  the  future Creative Europe would not consume more than 0,2 percent of the future seven year EU budget.