by Brit Holtebekk, European Commission, Directorate General for Education and Culture
SPEECH ON THE CONFERENCE ON Culture 2000 BUDAPEST, 13 January 2001
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about the cultural framework programme, Culture 2000, which is the main Community support mechanism in the cultural sector.
The Culture 2000 Framework programme was established by a decision made by the Parliament and the Council in February last year. This first year with a new programme has been a very exciting year with a lot of new challenges - both for the applicants and for us. 1 will present the programme for you on the background of this first year's experiences.
The Culture 2000 programme will last for a period of five years - 2000-2004. Through the programme, the Community aims to implement a new approach to cultural action.
In general, the programme seeks to encourage the creation of a cultural area common to Europeans and to promote co-operation between cultural operators. Support is granted in all artistic and cultural sectors.
The first Call for proposals was launched in April 2000. The second Call for proposals will be launched shortly.
Background- short introduction
Cultural co-operation within the EU is a relatively new exercise. Cultural action at European level only really begins in 1992 with the Maastricht Treaty, when an article on culture, Article 151, was inserted into the Treaty.
The aim was to allow the Community to support and promote both the European culture and tradition which the Europeans share and the many different cultures which make the European countries culturally diverse. This dual aim is important to remember when submitting an application.
Following the insertion of Article 151 into the Treaty, the Commission issued three proposals for programmes, to cover; artistic and cultural creation, books and reading, and the preservation of cultural heritage. These programmes, called respectively Kaleidoscope, Ariane and Raphael, offered support from 1996/1997 up until the end of 1999.
These three programmes were extremely popular with cultural operators (Kaleidoscope received nearly 4000 applications over four years) and showed that there was a good deal of cultural co-operation taking place at European level which needed support.
For the follow-up of these programmes, the Commission undertook in-depth consultations, probably the widest consultations which have ever been conducted on cultural issues at European level. This included seminars, questionnaires sent to nearly all European countries and seeking the views of hundreds of European cultural organisations.
In addition, independent evaluations of the cultural programmes were also commissioned. The culmination of this consultation exercise was the European Union Cultural Forum, which was held in Brussels in January 1999 and which was attended by most of the main players in the European cultural field.
The findings of the consultation process were reflected in the Commission proposal for Culture 2000, that was presented to the other Community institutions on 6 May 1998. As 1 mentioned earlier, the Culture 2000 Framework Programme was established by the decision of the Parliament and the Council in February 2000.
The structure of the programme
The basis of the programme is the decision. Whatever is in the decision, you can therefore be sure of is in the programme - in fact, it is the programme. This makes the decision a useful instrument, for instance while you wait for a call, but also a necessary, although technical, background for an application.
The first article of the decision describes the duration and the objectives of the programme. As 1 said earlier, the duration of the programme is for 5 years from 2000. Among the main aims of the programme are:
- promotion of cultural dialogue
- promotion of mutual knowledge of the culture and history of the European peoples
- promotion of creativity
- promotion of transnational dissemination of culture
- promotion of the movement of artists
- highlighting of cultural diversity
- highlighting of the development of new forms of cultural expression
- sharing and highlighting the common cultural knowledge of European significance
- promotion of socio-economic and social integration
... and these are not all!
The types of cultural actions and events are described in Article 2. There are three different types of actions:
- specific innovative or experimental actions;
- integrated projects (or cultural co-operation agreements); and
- major projects;
I will come back to how this was implemented in 2000. For now, 1 will just mention that there is a more detailed description of each measure or type of action in the Annex 1 of the decision.
Article 3 states that the overall budget for the programme is of 167 mill EURO.
Article 4 describes the implementation of the programme, and again, the annexes are important.
According to Article 5, the Commission shall be assisted by a Committee, or the management committee, as it is usually called. As for now, the Committee consists of representatives from the participating countries, and is consulted by the Commission on specific issues connected to the implementation of the programme: time schedule, call for proposals texts, selection of projects etc.
Article 6 states that the Culture 2000 programme should be implemented in consistency and complementary with other, relevant Community policies and actions.
Article 7 is important to you as it ensures the possibility of the participation of some countries outside the EU; the EEA countries, Cyprus and the associated countries of central and Eastern Europe.
The last articles of the decision contains establishes rules regarding evaluation, entry into force etc.
It is worth noticing the mentioning of Cultural Contact Points in Annexe 1, point 5. The main aims of the Contact Points are to make the programme known to professionals and organisers on a national level, and to encourage participation and help applicants. As for now, there are 17 Cultural Contact Points established.
The programme's actions
Specific Projects
The aim of specific projects is to continue the good work of the Ariane, Kaleidoscope and Raphael programmes and to allow the types of projects which have received support in the past to go on doing so.
Specific Projects support activities which encourage new forms of cultural expression, improve access to culture, make use of multimedia and promote European cultures in third countries. The continued inclusion of support for specific projects in the framework programme shows that the fostering of new and innovative co-operation between European cultural partners remains a key facet of Community cultural support.
The level of Community support available - between ¤50,000 and ¤150,000, and not more than 60% of the total budget - reflects the size of the projects the Commission is looking for in this area.
Integrated Projects
The purpose of Integrated Projects or, as they are called, Cultural Co-operation Agreements, is to allow for large scale, high quality cultural events to rely on the long term support of the Commission to develop their activities over a period of time.
In this way, structured, multi-annual projects (in particular those involving networks) may apply to be part of a cultural co-operation agreement with the Commission for a maximum of three years. Such agreements could involve large-scale cultural events (for example, exhibitions, festivals, etc), trans-sectoral integrated projects or measures to develop further training or mobility. The level of support available will reflect the large scale of the supported projects in that up to ¤300,000 per year will be available.
It is hoped that supporting integrated projects will improve the visibility of Community support, as well as establish infrastructure through which further, smaller scale, cultural activities may take place in future.
Major Projects
As the action 3 projects are probably of less interest to you, 1 shall only mention them briefly. The idea of major projects is to provide support, again, for larger scale projects - but with less emphasis on the creation of cultural infrastructure.
The programme lists examples of the kinds of projects which could receive support, for instance the European Capital of Culture. Again, the level of Community support available (¤200,000 - ¤1 million) reflects the likely scale of the supported projects.
In general terms, for all three actions, support of up to 60% of the total project costs will be available to projects involving a minimum of 3 or 5 partners from eligible countries.
Also, in order to ensure that certain cultural sectors are not left behind in the framework programme - there is an indicative amount of the total programme budget allocated to different sectors: 35% performing arts, 11% literature and 34% heritage. These figures are only indicative.
Some practical information: Last year, the call was issued on 8 April and the deadline for submitting calls was 31 May. Usually, there is at least six to eight weeks to prepare the application.
The applications need to be posted within or on the deadline date. When the application reaches the Commission, an acknowledgement of receipt is sent back, confirming the date of the postmark. The acknowledgement of receipt also indicates a reference number that you should always mention whenever you contact the Commission about the project.
The first step of the selection procedure is the formal selection, which is done by the Commission. The formal selection criterias - for example that the applications are sent within the deadline, that there are 3 or 5 partners, that the budget is balanced -are all described in the Call for proposals.
The applications that are not rejected on a formal basis will then be examined by an independent expert group. The experts will evaluate the quality of each project.
On the basis of the experts' evaluation, the Commission presents a proposal for the selection of projects for support to the management committee. The final selection is done by the Commission in agreement with the management committee.
I hope I have by this managed to shed some light on the Community cultural support. Thank you.