European culture, cinema, television, games, music, literature, performing arts, heritage and related areas will benefit from increased support under the European Commission’s new Creative Europe programme, which was approved by the European Parliament today.
With a budget of €1.46 billion over the next seven years – 9% more than current levels – the programme will provide a boost for the cultural and creative sectors, which are a major source of jobs and growth. Creative Europe will provide funding for at least 250,000 artists and cultural professionals, 2,000 cinemas, 800 films and 4,500 book translations. It will also launch a new financial guarantee facility enabling small cultural and creative businesses to access up to €750 million in bank loans.
Creative Europe builds on the experience and success of the Culture and MEDIA programmes, which have supported the cultural and audiovisual sectors for more than 20 years. The new programme includes a Culture sub-programme, supporting performing and visual arts, heritage and other areas, and a MEDIA sub-programme, which will provide funding for the cinema and audiovisual sector.
The programme will allocate at least 56% of its budget for the MEDIA sub-programme and at least 31% for the Culture sub-programme. This broadly reflects the share of funding that the two areas currently receive. A maximum of 13% of the budget will be allocated to a new cross-sectoral strand, including the financing facility.
New actions for the MEDIA sub-programme include support for international co-production funds, video games and audience development, but no radical changes have been proposed for the changeover between MEDIA 2007 and Creative Europe. The main funding priorities continue to be training, development, TV programming, distribution, access to markets and festivals.
Welcoming today’s vote, Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, stated: ‘This investment is great news for Europe’s film industry, for culture and the arts, and for the public. Creative Europe will enable our dynamic cultural sectors to create new jobs and contribute more to the EU economy. It will enable thousands of talented artists to reach new audiences in Europe and beyond, while also promoting cultural and linguistic diversity. In addition to providing considerable levels of grant support, our guarantee facility will boost access to finance for hundreds of small companies.’
Agnieszka Moody, Director of MEDIA Desk UK said: ‘This fantastic news heralds a new priority for collaboration and partnership in Europe, encouraging closer relationships to be formed between audiovisual and other cultural and creative sectors. Increased financial support will enable a number of exciting and innovative new projects to come to fruition to the benefit of audience development across the UK and Europe, ensuring that UK films are seen in Europe and that UK audiences have access to European cinema.’
The Creative Europe programme will be definitively adopted by the Council (28 Member States) in the weeks to come and will enter into force in January 2014. In order to speed up the application process, the Commission will publish the first calls for proposals in December 2013.
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Read the full press release here.
