Creative Europe, Culture & MEDIA programmes
(The EU’s Culture, MEDIA and MEDIAMundus programmes operated separately between 2007 and 2013, before being integrated under the Creative Europe programme for the 2014-2020 period).
Creative Europe aims to respond to challenges the cultural and creative sectors face in terms of fragmentation, globalisation and the digital shift, a lack of data and shortage of private investment.
The general objectives of the programme are to safeguard and promote European cultural and linguistic diversity (as prescribed by the EU Treaty) and to strengthen the competitiveness of the sector.
Creative Europe thereby contributes to EU implementation of the 2005 Convention (which is mentioned explicitly in its establishing Regulation), as well as contributing the EU 2020 strategy and its flagship initiatives.
Specific objectives are as follows:
1. To support the capacity of the European cultural and creative sectors to operate transnationally including by strengthening the relations and networks between operators;
2. To promote the transnational circulation of cultural and creative works and operators and reach new audiences in Europe and beyond;
3. To strengthen the financial capacity of the cultural and creative sectors;
4. To support transnational policy cooperation.
Creative Europe seeks to support cultural and audiovisual professionals and organisations in the performing arts, fine arts, publishing, film, TV, music, interdisciplinary arts, heritage, and the video games industry, allowing them to operate across Europe, to reach new audiences (which will, in turn, benefit from getting access to more non-national cultural works) and to develop the skills that are needed in the digital age.
Creative Europe is organised by means of a series of 18 schemes (for both sub-programmes) whose budget and frequency of calls vary. Virtually all supported activities have a cross-border dimension.
The Culture schemes aim to support four kinds of project:
- transnational cultural cooperation projects
- European networks
- European platforms
- literary translation projects
The sub-programme also supports special actions such as the European Capitals of Culture, the European Heritage Label, the European Heritage Days as well as 4 prizes in the field of culture.
The MEDIA schemes aim to support:
- training measures promoting the acquisition and improvement of skills and competences by audiovisual professionals ;
- European audiovisual works, in particular films and television works such as fiction, documentaries and children's and animated films;
- narrative video games ;
- activities helping European and international co-production partners to come together and/or providing indirect support for audiovisual works co-produced by international co-production funds based in a country participating in the Programme;
- access to professional audiovisual trade events and markets and the use of online business tools
inside and outside the Union;
- the distribution of non-national European films through theatrical distribution and online platforms, as well as international sales activities, in particular the subtitling, dubbing and audio description of audiovisual works ;
- European cinema operators' network screening a significant proportion of non-national European films;
- festivals promoting a diversity of European audiovisual works, including short films ;
- activities to promote film literacy and increase knowledge of, and interest in, European audiovisual works and heritage, in particular among young audiences.
In addition to grants, a newly-established Guarantee facility provides a market-based mode of financing (debt financing) for initiatives in the sectors.
The programme also supports policy development and communication activities.
It can be estimated that, in 2014-2020, at least 6,400 cultural organisations and 240,000 artists, cultural professionals and their works would receive support from the Culture sub-programme to cross borders, reach new audiences and acquire the experience which will help them to develop international careers. The programme will also support the translation of an estimated 4,500 books and other literary works.
The MEDIA Sub-programme will support the worldwide distribution of more than 800 European films, via traditional and digital platforms; it will also provide funding for the training of audiovisual professionals, to help them access and successfully work in international markets, and for the development of films and other audiovisual works with a potential for cross-border circulation.
It is expected that the European Investment Fund (EIF) will manage the €121 million Guarantee Facility on behalf of the European Commission, and that it will have a leverage effect of roughly 5 times this amount.
While the implementation of the programmes have not yet been formally evaluated, in 2017 a mid-term review of the Creative Europe programme will include an evaluation of the Culture, MEDIA and MEDIA Mundus programmes (2011-2013) as well as the first years of Creative Europe.
The overall Creative Europe budget for 2014-2020 is EUR 1.46 billion, which represents a budget increase of 9% compared to the previous programmes from 2007-13.
This budget is broken down as follows: 56% for the MEDIA sub-programme, 31% for Culture and 13% for the cross-sectoral strand, which supports a number of activities of transversal nature including the Guarantee facility.