Cultural Compass: a compass for European cultural policies

Anticipated in the mission letter delivered by President Ursula von der Leyen to the newly appointed Commissioner Glenn Micallef, the European Commission presented the Culture Compass for Europe, the new strategic plan to steer cultural policies for the next seven-year programme period. The document, which addresses some structural criticalities of the cultural and creative sector such as working conditions, restrictions on artistic freedom, access to culture up to the impact of artificial intelligence on creative practices, aims to steer European cultural policies of the Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034, which in the current proposal is already worth almost EUR 2 trillion.

The Culture Compass is supported by four cross-cutting policy instruments that ensure its implementation and monitoring over time. Firstly, a Joint Declaration between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission that will define the key principles guiding the Union's cultural policies. This framework will be flanked by the Report on the State of Culture in the EU, which will provide a regular assessment of the sector, with a specific focus on the protection of artistic freedom. The relationship with the cultural world will be ensured by a structured EU dialogue on culture, conceived as a permanent platform of confrontation with stakeholders. Finally, the EU Cultural Data Hub will provide shared data, analyses and indicators to support sound and up-to-date evidence-based decision-making processes.

The development of the Culture Compass for Europe was one of the main tasks entrusted by President Ursula von der Leyen to the Commissioner for Intergenerational Equity, Youth, Culture and Sport, Glenn Micallef. To define the priorities of the Plan, the Commissioner launched a broad public consultation process involving both individual operators and 50 European cultural networks, with the aim of gathering stakeholders' needs and proposals. From this work, four strategic areas emerged on which the Compass will focus its actions, with the aim of arriving in 2028 with clear and operational guidelines:

The Plan recalls the European Commission's need to protect artists and cultural operators from censorship phenomena still widespread in several Member States. According to what is anticipated, artistic freedom will be the focus of the next State of Culture Report and will be strengthened through the creation of dedicated safe havens, financed through specific calls of the new framework programme AgoraEU.
The promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity, considered a pillar of European integration, is also part of this. Between 2021 and 2024, the Creative Europe programme supported 670 transnational cultural partnerships and the distribution of 554 films in EU cinemas, reaching 37.9 million viewers in countries other than the country of production. Nevertheless, the Plan emphasises the need to introduce new measures to safeguard this fundamental value of the Union, introducing new initiatives that will become the object of study such as the Youth Culture Pass, the promotion of the DiscoverEU Culture Route and the strengthening of the cultural offer within the Erasmus+ Youth Charter.

A central theme of the next seven years is the need to address the structural fragilities that characterise the work of artists and cultural workers. According to Eurostat, in 2024 the cultural and creative sectors in the EU employed 7.9 million people, or 3.8% of total employment. A well-established fact is the high incidence of self-employment: almost one third of those employed in the sector are freelancers, a share more than double the European average. Added to this is a lower contractual stability: permanent contracts are 15.2 % lower than in the rest of the labour market. In addition to these critical issues, further vulnerabilities emerge: still high levels of undeclared work, insufficient social protection, marked wage disparities, with women over-represented in the lower income brackets, and still inadequate protection for those working on an intermittent basis.
To address these issues, as indicated by the Compass, the Commission is committed to presenting an EU Artists Charter, which will introduce criteria and commitments for contractualisation at least for institutions receiving European funding. A European summit and new legal literacy initiatives will also be planned, including the platform This Is How We Work and collaboration with the CLIP - Creators Learn Intellectual Property programme of the WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organisation.