According to recent news from Culture Action Europe, the European Commission published its long-awaited Green paper entitled ‘Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries’. Aimed at the elaboration of a dedicated EU action plan for the cultural and creative industries, it also demands enhanced Member States’ policies in that field - at all relevant levels of governance, and a stronger coordination between them.
An important basis for the appearance of the ‘cultural and creative agenda’ at EU level was certainly the ‘Lisbon strategy for growth and jobs’ adopted in 2000. Aimed at boosting European economy and create employment, it articulated its action around innovation and knowledge-based growth - with sustained focus on education.
In the past decade, several initiatives were launched, and a number of documents and declarations prepared, negotiated, and adopted. Starting with the 2006 KEA report on ‘The Economy of Culture in Europe’ that seeks to legitimate the ‘cultural and creative industries’ paradigm at EU level, and offer key data on their contribution to Europe’s economy, followed by the 2007 Council Conclusions on the ‘Contribution of the cultural and creative sectors to the achievement of the Lisbon objectives’ and the 2007 Communication on a ‘European agenda for culture in a globalizing world’ which was based on the findings of an intergovernmental working group (Open method of Coordination) on the cultural and creative industries. Later, the 2009 European Year of Innovation and Creativity aimed at raising the profile of ‘creativity’ at EU level and at positioning cultural and creative industries in this new policy field. Last, but not least, the 2009 KEA report on ‘The Impact of Culture on Creativity’ that focuses on ‘culturebased creativity’ and that demands the broadening of ‘creativity policies’ to new sectors such as the arts, education, research, science, etc.
If this list is impressive, the road ahead is still more than rocky. A good example is the process that led to the adoption of the EU 2020 strategy earlier this year. If creativity appeared in the original EC consultation document, that launched the negotiation of the strategy, all references to creativity, culture, or cultural and creative industries disappeared from the final framework document. There are no references either in the operational guidelines of the strategy, despite the efforts of a couple of Member states, namely Poland and France. This illustrates once again the difficulty for culture and cultural industries concerns to make their way into other policy fields, or to be integrated on an equal footing in overarching economic or social agendas. This also considerably weakens DG EAC’s position, which faces important challenges at the time of defending its positions in a transversal way. This demonstrates once again the balance of power within the European Commission and the Council of the EU; a balance of power that is often mirrored at national level, when looking at the relationships between Culture Ministries and their economic counterparts.
As a consultative document, the Green paper is not supposed to have direct consequences in policy and programme terms. Still, in the months to come the objective will be to influence the negotiations of the 2014-2020 programmes and regional development funds, as well as a number of the flagship initiatives of the EU 2020 strategy.
The Green Paper consultation which closes at the end of this month, is limited to a set of concrete questions:
• How to create more spaces and better support for experimentation, innovation and
entrepreneurship?
• How to foster art and design schools/business partnerships as a way to promote
incubation, start-ups and entrepreneurship, as well as e-skills development?
• How to stimulate private investment and improve access to finance? Is there
added value for financial instruments at the EU level to support and complement
efforts made at national and regional levels? If yes, how?
• How to improve the investment readiness of CCI (Cultural/Creative Industries) companies? Which specific measures
could be taken and at which level (regional, national, European)?
• How to strengthen the integration of CCIs into strategic regional/local development?
Which tools and which partnerships are needed for an integrated approach?
• What new instruments should be mobilised to promote cultural diversity through the
mobility of cultural and creative works, artists and cultural practitioners within the
6 European Union and beyond? To which extent could virtual mobility and online access
contribute to these objectives?
• Which tools should be foreseen or reinforced at EU level to promote cooperation,
exchanges and trade between the EU CCIs and third countries?
• How to accelerate the spill-over effects of CCIs on other industries and society at
large? How can effective mechanisms for such knowledge diffusion be developed and
implemented?
• How can "creative partnerships" be promoted between CCIs and education
institutions / businesses / administrations?
• How to support the better use of existing intermediaries and the development of a
variety of intermediaries acting as an interface between artistic and creative
communities and CCIs on the one hand, and education institutions / businesses and
administrations, on the other hand?
While running separately, the programme for the Belgian presidency of the European Council (July-December 2010) has announced a desire to address the issue of cultural poverty and exclusion.
