EU culture budget to double, but UK remains outside

The European Parliament and the European Council are proposing a budget of €2.8bn to support the cultural field. Intense lobbying has led to this top-up of almost €600m on the initially proposed €2.24bn for Creative Europe, the new cultural program that will start in January 2021 and run for the next seven years.

The new culture budget is almost twice the 2014-2020 budget of €1.46bn, but as things stand, British arts and cultural organisations will be unable to participate as a non-EU member. This could still change as earlier this year Downing Street said the Government is “ready to consider participation in certain EU programmes … taking into account the overall value to the UK of doing so”.

Before the Creative Europe money is made available to the cultural sector, the whole €1.8tn EU budget must be formally adopted by the European Parliament and the council and ratified by member states. This could prove to be more than a formality, with Hungary and Poland currently witholding their vote.