MEP Silvia Costa supports the boosting the EU culture budget
09 May 18 |
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Silvia Costa MEP makes a statement: “EU Culture needs more budget and centrality in the next MFF. I strongly support the call from Europe´s cultural, creative and audio-visual sector”. Read the full version below
Culture needs to be adequately funded by the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), that the European Commission will present beginning of May.
I totally agree with the open letter sent out by 67 organizations from across Europe´s cultural, creative and audio-visual sector, urging the Commission to give a significant boost to the EU budget dedicated to culture. As you know, during the Culture Forum in Milan I have been stressing that 0,15% of the EU budget for Culture is clearly not enough, proposing to increase it up to 1%.
I would like to assure all those in the cultural, creative and audio-visual sector worried about the next MFF that we in the CULT Committee of the European Parliament are closely following their concerns and strongly committed to avoid that the programming cycle 2021/2027 will dedicate to culture the small amount of EU funds that we are dealing with today.
Rumours have it that the main Culture program, “Creative Europe”, could be merged with “Europe for citizens” under Justice. This is worrisome for us. I believe that Culture, both as artistic expression and entrepreneurial activity, stands on its own and cannot be ancillary to citizenship, in such a framework. The cultural, audio-visual and creative industry is a standard-bearer of innovation in several fields and has a clear economic role that we cannot underestimate by reducing EU commitment to funding culture and the audio-visual and creative sector.
In this sense, as Coordinator of the S&D Group in the CULT Committee I asked – in cooperation with other groups – to have as soon as possible a hearing with the Commissioners in charge for Budget (Günther Oettinger), Culture, Education, Youth and Sports (Tibor Navracsics) and Digital Economy and Society (Mariya Gabriel). I appreciate that the Chair of the Committee is working to make this possible.
It would be utterly inconceivable that we give up our efforts towards culture in this 2018 that we proclaimed as European Year of Cultural Heritage (EYCH). The Year is in fact facilitating, for the first time ever, also an active collaboration among different Directorate Generals of the European Commission, as recently proven by a high-level conference on innovation and culture heritage that took place in Brussels.
On the other hand, the EU should confirm and improve its commitment in promising fields such as the cultural diplomacy, Digital4Culture and culture competences in the European action plan on digital, all fields where we as Europeans can really play a role.
It is for sure that we, as co-legislator, will confront Commission and Council so that in the next MFF 2021/2027 European cultural policy will have the central place it deserves. We will also do so regarding the objectives of the New European Agenda for Culture that will be presented mid-May and the Council Working Plan 2019/2021, in so developing the ten European actions on cultural heritage and the new governance that follows up on the EYCH.