European Parliament: Creative Europe 2021-2027 adopted

IRIS 2021-6:1/10

Francisco Javier Cabrera Blázquez

European Audiovisual Observatory

On 19 May 2021, the European Parliament adopted ‘Creative Europe’, the EU’s programme for culture and the audiovisual sector. The new programme will invest EUR 2.5 billion in the EU’s cultural and creative sectors. This is almost double the budget when compared to 2014-2020 (up from EUR 1.4 billion).

Creative Europe is divided into three different strands:

- Culture focuses on networking, transnational and multi-disciplinary collaboration in cultural and creative sectors and fostering a stronger European identity and values with special attention for the music sector, as negotiated by MEPs.  

- Media is dedicated to stimulating cross-border cooperation, mobility and innovation; increasing the visibility of European audiovisual works in the new environment; and making it attractive to different audiences, especially young people.  

- Cross-sectoral aims to encourage innovation, support cross-sectoral projects, the exchange of the best practices and address common challenges. Support, for the first time, will also go to the news media sector, promoting media literacy, pluralism, press freedom and quality journalism, and helping the media to better address the challenges of digitalisation.

Alongside the increase in funding, the new programme has a greater focus on inclusion, on support for contemporary and live music sectors that are among those hit hardest by the pandemic, and higher co-financing rates for small-scale projects. It furthermore includes an obligation for the programme to promote female talent and support women’s artistic and professional careers.  

As the programme had been already approved by the Council of the EU, it entered into force immediately after being published in the official journal. In order to ensure a smooth transition from the previous programme period, retroactivity provisions in the regulation ensure that the new Creative Europe enters into effect from 1 January 2021.