Creative Europe: over €2 billion to support the recovery, resilience and diversity of cultural and creative sectors

On 26 May, the European Commission launched new actions to support the cultural and creative sectors in Europe and beyond, following the adoption of the work programme for the first year of the Creative Europe 2021-2027 programme.

In 2021, Creative Europe will allocate an unprecedented budget of around €300 million to help professionals and artists from all cultural sectors to collaborate across disciplines and borders, in order to find more opportunities and to reach new audiences. The total programme budget of €2.4 billion over seven years has increased by 63% compared to the previous one.

Creative Europe sets out common goals for the cultural and creative sectors. It puts a stronger emphasis on transnational creation, global circulation and promotion of European works, innovation across sectors, and ease of funding access through higher EU co-financing rates. All funded actions and projects should respect gender equality and the EU’s environmental commitments in the design and implementation of their activities. Special attention is given to reinforcing the resilience and recovery of the cultural and creative sectors in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Actions covered by Creative Europe include:

• A scheme to support the translation of literary works and the development of publishing partnerships;
• EU Prizes in the fields of literature, music, architecture and cultural heritage, as well as the European Capitals of Culture and European Heritage Label initiatives;
• Strengthening the accessibility and visibility of European audiovisual works across platforms and borders;
• Creative Innovation Lab – encouraging innovative approaches to content creation, distribution, and promotion across different sectors;
• Promotion of media literacy, pluralism and freedom, as European values.

The adoption of the new Creative Europe programme lays the foundations for the first calls for proposals which will be open to all organisations active in the relevant cultural and creative sectors.

The Creative Europe programme is open to cultural and creative organisations from EU Member States, as well as non-EU countries.

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Press release