“The Commission seems not to see the seriousness of the situation”, lamented Petra Kammerevert (S&D, Germany), Friday 10 July, in response to a speech by Margarítis Schinás, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for promoting the ‘European Way of Life’.
Mr Schinás spoke during a debate on the post-Covid-19 recovery of the cultural and creative sector, which has been hard hit by the pandemic (see EUROPE 12490/5).
He recalled that the Commission had taken a number of measures that could benefit this “particularly vulnerable” sector, such as the temporary rules for State Aid (see EUROPE 12461/9) and the SURE instrument to mitigate the risks of unemployment (see EUROPE 12525/3).
The Vice-President also stressed that various funding programmes, beyond the Creative Europe programme, which is specifically dedicated to culture, could contribute to the recovery of the sector after 2020, mentioning the Horizon Europe and Digital Europe programmes, the InvestEU instrument, and the budget increase allocated to the ReactEU cohesion policy.
However, neither these statements nor the promise of the forthcoming launch of aid for the music sector were enough to reassure MEPs.
“It’s all just a few drops in the ocean. Neither the recovery fund nor the next multiannual financial framework really takes the cultural and creative sector into account” (see EUROPE 12424/2), Mrs Kammerevert said, pleading for 2% of the European Recovery Plan to be allocated to culture.
Like the German Social Democrat, most of the political group coordinators criticised the Commission for its lack of interest in the sector.
Laurence Farreng (Renew Europe, France) thus denounced the “ridiculous amount” allocated to Creative Europe. An amount that “increased by only 8%, although the European Parliament asked for double”, she recalled, pointing out that the EU devotes only 0.14% of its budget to culture.
“The recovery must be the moment when culture ceases to be a corollary to other EU activities”, said Salima Yenbou (Greens/EFA, France).
However, the Commission was not the only one to be criticised. Niklas Nienass (Greens/EFA, Germany) spoke during the debate to ask for the duration of the debate to be extended. “This is the first debate we've had on culture. You’ve only given us 30 minutes. It's a big joke!” he told Parliament’s leaders. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)