Culture has always been a vibrant social resource, able to heal wounds in times of crisis. It carries tremendous intrinsic value and contributes significantly to the economy, with 4.2% of the EU GDP and 7.4 million jobs created. Culture is a vital component of the European integration and solidarity, uniting the European multitude of mentalities and histories in all their diversity, and shaping a common space for Europeans to develop a shared identity. However, nowadays, cultural and creative sectors (CCSs) themselves are among the most seriously damaged by the pandemic, being cultural activities halted, millions of jobs frozen or wiped out, and micro and small businesses on the brink of bankruptcy, among others.

While some concrete measures have been established in the past months, the European Commission also clearly included culture as one of the 14 priority ecosystems to repair, when presenting the recovery package for Europe, back in May. Now that the dialogue with the Member States on the design of their national recovery and resilience plans has kicked off, it is crucial that CCSs are fully included in the attainment of the main RRF objectives.

Therefore, the pan-European community of 110 networks and associations is now calling on the European Commission to encourage Member States to fully integrate culture in their national recovery and resilience plans, allocating at the very least 2% of the RRF budgets to the CCSs, as called for by the European Parliament in its recent resolution on the “Cultural Recovery of Europe”.

Read the full Letter to the European Commission on behalf of Europe’s Cultural and Creative Sectors here.

Read the full Letter to National Governments on behalf of Europe’s Cultural and Creative Sectors here.