Feature Series – Creative Europe

The Netherlands, with nearly 200 structures involved in Creative Europe over the past seven years, is active on the map of European cultural cooperation. Here we meet artistic personalities involved in this scheme, whose DNA is to encourage cross-border connections, audience development, diversity and innovation.

European funds can help accelerate the development of cultural projects that cannot be supported on a national scale. This helping hand is sometimes saving, but it can also lead to bureaucratic complications and a need for structural adaptation. This article illustrates this, using Portuguese live art as a backdrop.

For European projects, being supported by Europe Creative can mean growth and success. It can also mean unexpected trouble and bureaucratic reality checks.

For the cultural sector, the consequences of the pandemic are felt beyond emergency aid. The impact differs according to artistic disciplines and European countries. In addition to the cross-border projects of Europe Creative, the setting up of a common cultural policy could be a solution to rebuild the Europe of culture.

The UK is no longer part of the EU, but that does not mean there are no lessons to be learned from the UK’s former European cultural cooperation projects. In this article, former beneficiaries of the fund describe the opportunities it brought – whilst keeping the future in mind.

Europe Creative supports Austrian cultural actors by providing funding and mentoring. Their only obligation in return: to privilege the European interest by associating with other countries.