The new “Creative Europe” programme will promote the mobility of European artists and works, and help audiovisual professionals to adapt to the digital age, for the next seven years. On Tuesday Parliament passed a draft law putting in place a loan guarantee mechanism to help micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises in the cultural and creative sectors to expand.
“Globalization, digitization, market fragmentation, wider audience and access to credit: these are all the challenges that Creative Europe faces with the aim of supporting a sector that accounts for 7% of European GDP, employs nearly eight million people and involves 1 million businesses”, said rapporteur Silvia Costa (S&D, IT).
Today’s MEDIA, MEDIA Mundus and Culture programmes will be brought together and reorganised to include two sub-programmes (MEDIA et Culture) and a cross-sectoral component. The new programme will have a total budget of more than €1.4 billion.
The new guarantee mechanism should leverage funding for micro-enterprises in the cultural and creative sectors. All potential players in cultural and creative projects – video games, theatre or street artists – will get easier access to funding by obtaining European bank loans partially guaranteed by the new mechanism.
In the audiovisual field, films, video and multimedia games, documentaries and short films will be eligible for “Creative Europe” support. The European Parliament inserted a specific provision on funding for sub-titling, dubbing and audio description of European films, which should facilitate access to, and the circulation of, European works across borders.
The text was approved by 650 votes to 32, with 10 abstentions. If the Council approves the text voted by Parliament, the new programme will apply from January 2014.
