EP bespreekt uitwerking nieuwe cultuurprogramma 2014-2020 (en)

Cultural diversity is one of Europe's strengths. The Creative Europe programme for 2014-2020 aims to safeguard this diversity and boost the cultural sector's competitiveness. Backed by the culture committee on 5 November, it will bring together the existing Culture, MEDIA and MEDIA Mundus programmes. Ahead of the plenary vote on Tuesday, we asked Silvia Costa, an Italian member of the S&D group responsible for steering the proposals through EP, how the new programme will make a difference.

Why it is important to have this Creative Europe programme and what are the main challenges it aims to tackle?

Culture is important for Europe and also for European policies. Not only does it represent an economic and productive sector that accounts for 7% of Europe's gross domestic product, but also we have the European cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible.

The European Parliament, despite the cuts governments imposed on the whole EU budget, was able to increase the funds for cultural and creative sectors.

With Creative Europe we tried to come up with a way to face the cultural sector's main challenges: access to credit, globalisation, digitalisation and market fragmentation.

How is this programme different from the existing Culture, MEDIA and MEDIA Mundus programmes?

Creative Europe will unify the current programmes MEDIA, MEDIA Mundus and Culture under a common framework and provide a more structured financial instrument. However, each programme will have its own objectives and evaluation criteria.

The programme highlights the dual feature of culture: business and heritage.

How will the programme make it easier for small and medium sized enterprises to borrow money?

There is an important change: a guarantee instrument for the cultural and creative sectors which will provide loan assistance to micro, small and medium-sized cultural and creative enterprises.

For more details and contacts, click on the link for the press release on the right.

REF. : 20131114STO24603