Creative Europe

Creative Europe is a €1.46 billion European Union programme for the cultural and creative sectors for the years 2014-2020. The programme was approved by the European Parliament on 19 November 2013 and adopted by the European Council on 3 December 2013. It came into force on 1 January 2014 ^[1] A total of 650 of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted in favour of the programme, with 32 against and 10 abstaining.^[2]

Programme Details

The general objectives of Creative Europe are: (a) to safeguard, develop and promote European cultural and linguistic diversity and to promote Europe's cultural heritage; (b) to strengthen the competitiveness of the European cultural and creative sectors, in particular of the audiovisual sector, with a view to promoting smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.^[1]

Creative Europe encompasses the EU's previous Culture and MEDIA Programmes which have been in effect for more than 20 years.^[1][3] These strands now serve as sub-programmes under Creative Europe, with the Culture sub-programme supporting performing and visual arts, heritage and other areas, and the MEDIA sub-programme providing funding for the cinema and audiovisual sector. In addition, there is a new cross-sectoral strand supporting policy cooperation, transversal measures and a new financial guarantee facility, which will be operational from 2016.^[3]

Programmes that existed under the Culture and MEDIA strands, such as the European Capitals of Culture, European Heritage Label, European Heritage Days^[1] and the five European prizes (EU Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Awards, EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture, EU Prize for Literature, European Border Breakers Awards, and EU Prix MEDIA) continue to operate under Creative Europe.

Funding

Creative Europe has a budget of €1.46 billion over seven years,^[4] which represents a 9% increase over the previous budget.^[2] The programme has set aside funding for 250,000 artists and cultural professionals, 2,000 cinemas, 800 films and 4,500 literary translations,^[5]

The programme will allocate at least 56% of its budget to the MEDIA sub-programme for audiovisual and the cinema and at least 31% to the Culture sub-programme for performing and visual arts. This broadly reflects the share of funding that the two areas previously received ^[6]

A maximum of 13% of the budget will be allocated to new cross-sectoral strand, which includes funding the new Creative Europe Desks and supporting the financial guarantee facility which is set to come into operation from 2016.^[1] The programme will also launch a new financial guarantee facility enabling small cultural and creative businesses to access up to €750 million in bank loans. This guarantee will operate from 2016 and specifically target small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), will share the risk on loans offered to them by banks.^[7]

References