The European Ministers of Culture met by videoconference on Tuesday 19 May to discuss the impact of Covid-19 on the sector. The EU27 have reiterated their support for this sector, which is often seen as the forgotten sector in this crisis.
According to the Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO), museums have recorded an average 80% drop in revenue since the beginning of the crisis. Following containment measures, theatres, cinemas and the cultural and creative industries as a whole are facing significant deadweight losses.
At the press conference following the closed meeting, the Croatian Minister of Culture, Nina Obuljen Koržinek, welcomed the measures taken by the European Commission. She also announced that Member States had encouraged the Commission to continue its mapping exercise and had stressed the importance of the role of the media during the crisis.
European support
For her part, the Commissioner for Culture, Mariya Gabriel, highlighted the importance of European action. Asked by EUROPE about dissatisfaction in the cultural sector, she outlined a series of measures, before concluding: "It is certainly not enough, but it's not insignificant either!"
Among these measures, the Commissioner mentioned three horizontal instruments: the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative, the SURE instrument and State aid amendments. She also referred to extensions of deadlines, the acceleration of cross-border projects (€45.2 million), a new call for interest to facilitate mobility and virtual activities, and the exchange platforms for artists and for Member States that were launched following Covid-19.
Learning lessons for the future
The Commissioner also referred to the lessons to be learned from the crisis. "Now that restrictions are starting to be lifted in the EU, we need to go beyond emergency measures, learn lessons from the crisis and build future instruments that are more flexible, resilient and better funded. Creative Europe, Horizon Europe and the proposed Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) on cultural and creative industries will need to interact and reinforce each other", she said.
These discussions should feed into EU Council conclusions on media literacy, cultural heritage and the work plan for culture 2019-2022, which should be adopted by written procedure in the forthcoming days.
At time of going to press, another videoconference was still in progress, an informal meeting of European Youth Ministers (see EUROPE 12487/5). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)