Brussels, 19/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - With its adoption, by 650 votes to 32, with 10 abstentions, of “Creative Europe”, at its plenary session on 19 November, the European Parliament has given its blessing to the new programme for culture and audiovisual. The new programme will run from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2020. The budget has been extended to €1.45 billion, which is less than the €1.8 billion initially proposed, but satisfactory as it continues to send out a strong signal to the cultural and creative industries, stressed rapporteur Silvia Costa (S&D, Italy). “Globalisation, digitalisation, market fragmentation, the increase in the size of the audience and access to funding are the main challenges faced by Creative Europe in supporting a sector which represents 7% of EU GDP, which employs nearly 8 million people and which involves 1 million businesses”, she added. “This investment is excellent news (…). It will allow our dynamic cultural sectors to create new jobs and contribute more to the economy of the EU”, added Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou.
Creative Europe is based on the success of the current Culture and MEDIA programmes, which had been in place for more than 20 years. Popular initiatives such as the European Capitals of Culture, the European heritage label, the European heritage days and the five European prizes (the EU cultural heritage prize/Europa Nostra competition, the contemporary architecture prize of the EU, the European literary prize, the European Border Breakers Awards” and the MEDIA prize of the EU) will still be supported via Creative Europe. The new loan mechanism brought into the programme is also expected to have a leveraging effect for funds in favour of micro-businesses in the cultural and creative sectors. “Apart from the fact that it involves a remarkable volume of subsidies, it will boost access to funding for hundreds of small enterprises”, said Vassiliou. This mechanism will give all initiators of cultural and creative projects, including creators of videogames, theatre troupes and street artists, access to funding via loans from European banks, which can be partly guaranteed. In the audiovisuals area, films, video games and multimedia, documentaries and short films will now qualify for funding under Creative Europe. The EP included a specific provision on funding for subtitling, dubbing and audio description for European films, which will lead to a better distribution of films throughout Europe, beyond their national markets, state the MEPs. (IL/transl.fl)