Projected MFF budget for Creative Europe “unacceptable”, says chair of EP’s Culture committee
“With fake news on the rise and diversity under attack, we need more, not less funding for our creative minds", said EP's CULT committee chair Sabine Verheyen (EPP, DE) on Tuesday.
“The projected budget for Creative Europe is simply unacceptable”, said Sabine Verheyen (EPP, DE) in a statement distributed on Tuesday, commenting on the latest MFF proposal by European Council's president Michel, ahead of the special EU MFF summit on 20 February.
"If you take Charles Michel’s proposal and assume across-the-board cuts for all programmes where no figure is mentioned, you end up with a 20% cut for Creative Europe, compared to the Commission proposal and over 50% compared to the Parliament’s position. Staggeringly, this would even be 6% below the current programme budget.”
“I call on the Heads of State and Government not to conclude any agreement on the basis of such a proposal that goes also against what the Member States have agreed on several occasions to support culture and creative sectors. Instead, President Michel and the leaders should be following the Parliament in significantly increasing the budget for Creative Europe”.
Massimiliano Smeriglio (S&D, IT) rapporteur for Creative Europe in the Parliament, added: “This proposal would mean less funding for creative cooperation projects across Europe and fewer jobs in the creative sectors. Instead of 730 cooperation projects, as estimated by the Commission, only 480 cooperation projects would be financed over the 7 years. More than 1,600 organisations, of which 80% are micro- or small organisations, would not be financed and would not cooperate at European level.”
“The prospective cuts would put an end to inclusion of disadvantaged people and greening measures before they even get started”.
“Media production actions would be significantly scaled down at a time when American tech giants are becoming more and more important in Europe’s content sector, resulting in independent European producers struggling to remain competitive.”
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