The EU’s new culture strategy is out. Culture Action Europe unpacks!

The European Commission has adopted the Culture Compass for Europe, the first EU-wide strategy for culture in nearly a decade. It sets out a vision for the development of the cultural sector at the European level and outlines what the Commission plans to do to support it. 

Summary: Culture Action Europe welcomes the adoption of the EU’s new Culture Compass for Europe. The strategy is a positive and much-needed step forward, with clear values-driven language that highlights artistic freedom, cultural diversity, inclusion, and participation, and recognises the intrinsic value of culture as a sector in its own right. We appreciate the Commission’s clear links to the funding instruments and the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework. 

The Compass sets out 20 flagship initiatives, such as the periodic State of Culture Report to monitor artistic freedom and other key indicators, an EU Structured Dialogue on Culture, a Cultural Data Hub, the EU Artists’ Charter to improve working conditions, an AI Strategy for Cultural and Creative Sectors, and an updated International Strategy for Cultural Relations. These initiatives are ambitious and have the potential to make a tangible difference for the cultural sector. 

At the same time, CAE calls for even greater ambition in the future, including an Artistic Freedom Act and a Directive on Decent Working Conditions in the Cultural Sector. 

The strategy’s impact will ultimately depend on effective implementation, which requires clarity on funding, particularly as AgoraEU and other programmes for the 2028–2034 cycle are still under discussion. To ensure culture can contribute to EU priorities while thriving across Europe, Culture Action Europe reiterates the call of the Cultural Deal for Europe partners for 2% of the next MFF to be dedicated to culture. 

We acknowledge the contribution of Culture Action Europe and its members in informing the Commission’s strategy and see great complementarity between our discussion paper ‘Towards the Culture Compass: a Sector Blueprint’ and the official Culture Compass for Europe. 

We see a great opportunity for civil society to play an active and collaborative role in the delivery and implementation of the Culture Compass. We hope that cooperation between the Commission and civil society during its drafting will set a strong example for future consultations, helping to advance culture’s role across Europe and beyond. 

Why a new strategy, and why now?

Europe’s cultural landscape has changed dramatically since the last strategic document, the New European Agenda for Culture, was published in 2018. We need a new one: 

because the cultural sector is facing the consequences of the pandemic, Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and its deliberate targeting of cultural identity and heritage, the impact of AI on creative work, the rise of authoritarian and far-right regimes across Europe, and the export of divisive ‘culture war’ politics into European debate; 

because the European Court of Auditors—an independent body that checks how the EU budget is spent—in its report concluded that EU cultural policies remain too fragmented and lack an overarching strategic framework; 

because the EU is now preparing its next long-term budget for 2028–2034, which will define the scope and ambition of EU support for culture and therefore requires a clear guiding vision. 

How was the Culture Compass developed?

The development of the Culture Compass for Europe was one of the key tasks assigned to the Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture and Sport, Glenn Micallef, in his mission letter from President Ursula von der Leyen (and in the proposed mission letter drafted by the Cultural Deal for Europe partners). Its adoption was also foreseen in the 2025 Commission Work Programme.  

The Commission invited around 50 European cultural networks to a public exchange in March at the Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels to share their first reactions and ideas for the Compass. A public consultation followed, gathering 300 written contributions. The Commission also ran a survey of Member State representatives and a targeted online questionnaire to collect stakeholder views. 

Meanwhile, as the Commission was drafting the strategy, Culture Action Europe brought together more than 30 cross-border European cultural networks from our membership to develop a complementary vision: the discussion paper ‘Towards the Culture Compass: A Sector Blueprint.’ 

Over spring and summer 2025, this collaborative effort resulted in ten policy briefs covering topics from working conditions and artistic freedom to culture and security, and artistic research. The Blueprint positions culture as a foundational public good and builds on Culture Action Europe’s earlier research, the State of Culture report, and the discussions we facilitated around its findings, where members warned against the instrumentalisation of culture and called for policy scaffolding that supports culture as a sector in its own right with a distinct public value.   

What’s inside the Compass?

‘The EU must place culture at the heart of its political vision and its social and economic strategy. The Culture Compass will also serve as the strategic anchor for culture within the 2028–2034 MFF,’ reads the introduction. This approach echoes Culture Action Europe’s position early in the consultation process: strategy and budget belong together.  

The Compass is built around the idea: Europe for Culture, Culture for Europe. 

Europe for Culture focuses on creating the right conditions for culture to thrive, including cultural participation, artistic freedom, and the simple joy of culture. This part of the vision mainly addresses culture as a sector in its own right. Culture for Europe highlights culture’s transversal role: a vector for democratic resilience, social, economic and territorial cohesion, well-being, competitiveness and innovation. 

Structurally, the Compass is organised into four strands that read like concentric circles: (1) what culture creates and underpins—values and cultural rights; (2) how the ecosystem works and how to support creators; (3) culture’s synergies and contributions to other EU policies; and (4) international cultural relations. There is also an additional chapter on funding. The Compass does not follow a sectoral approach, opting instead for an overarching perspective that addresses cross-cutting issues and trends across the cultural ecosystem. 

Each chapter sets specific objectives with concrete initiatives. There are 20 flagship initiatives and many additional actions. 

What do we like about the Culture Compass?

Values. The Culture Compass reaffirms and commits to the core values of artistic freedom, cultural diversity, inclusion and participation at a moment when they can no longer be taken for granted. The document recognises culture’s intrinsic, societal, civic and economic value and its role as a fundamental public good. 

The Joint Declaration also articulates a long-term strategic vision ‘to place culture at the heart of Europe’s identity, emphasising the importance of culture for individuals, communities and the EU, and strengthening cultural rights and principles.’ 

Structure. The previous New European Agenda for Culture was organised around culture’s social, economic and external dimensions. The Compass adopts a clearer, more stepwise architecture that better recognises culture both as a sector and as a vector. It begins with the values and rights culture creates and underpins, then moves to enabling artists and cultural workers to generate that value, and finally looks at how culture can contribute to other policies and international relations. 

The Compass strikes a balance between responding to the needs of the sector and connecting it with other policy areas such as education, research, environment, etc. 

One particularly welcome element is the acknowledgment that culture strengthens ‘societal resilience, stability, and reconciliation, and contributes to our collective security.’ Another much-appreciated recognition is that culture must be woven more tightly into territorial development plans and linked to cohesion funds, which, in the current EU budget cycle, have already dedicated around €5 billion to culture. Culture Action Europe calls for 2% of the next edition of cohesion funds to be earmarked to culture. 

Ambition. The Compass is the most ambitious EU cultural strategy to date. It presents 20 flagship initiatives, several of which have potential to deliver meaningful change, such as systemic monitoring of artistic freedom infringements as part of the State of Culture report, an EU Artists’ Charter, and an updated Strategy for International Cultural Relations. Some actions are more visibility-oriented or exploratory in nature, yet overall, the package as a whole manages to address some of the long-standing demands of the sector.  

It’s worth remembering that the Compass remains a Commission strategy, which operates within the EU’s limited cultural competence. Even so, the document shows creative policy thinking and leverages existing instruments to maximise their impact. For example, the idea of mutual recognition of Culture Passes across Member States could lay the groundwork for an interoperable, EU-wide scheme at a lower cost.  

Better coordination. The Compass is accompanied by a Joint Declaration, which will hopefully be signed by the European Parliament, the Council, and the Commission. Although the Compass itself is a Commission document, adopting a Joint Declaration simultaneously will bring the Council and Parliament on board and create continuity with the next Work Plan for Culture beyond 2026, which will be led by the Council.  

By explicitly referencing AgoraEU and other funding programmes, the Compass signals an intention to ensure that its content informs the legal bases of future funding instruments. It also acknowledges international frameworks—from UNESCO to G7 and G20—and commits to ‘contributing to the advancement of culture in the post-2030 sustainable development agenda.’ There is clearly stronger coordination with other strategic documents at different levels. 

Monitoring framework. The Compass introduces tools that form the backbone of a monitoring framework: a periodic State of Culture Report, an EU Structured Dialogue on Culture, and an EU Cultural Data Hub. The methodology and indicators for tracking progress will be developed with the involvement of civil society, as part of the structured dialogue with cultural and creative stakeholders. 

Links to money. The Compass includes a dedicated chapter on funding that recognises the need for a strong AgoraEU programme building on the success of Creative Europe, while calling for further simplification through wider use of lump sums and cascading grants. It also suggests integrating culture into the European Competitiveness Fund, Horizon Europe, National and Regional Partnership Plans, and the Global Europe instrument, and references some of these programmes (such as Horizon Europe and the Cohesion Funds) throughout the text as well. We welcome this mainstreaming approach, but also call for additional revenue for AgoraEU by redirecting digital fines imposed on big tech under the Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act, and AI Act to supplement the AgoraEU budget. 

The Compass highlights the achievements of MediaInvest and the Cultural and Creative Sectors Loan Guarantee Facility, which has helped banks lend to creative enterprises that often struggle to access finance due to their intangible assets and higher risk profiles. The Commission proposes exploring new financial tools to mobilise private investment in culture. 

Flagship initiatives: Culture Action Europe’s top picks

1. State of Culture Report (Q3 2027)

The Commission plans to periodically publish a State of Culture Report to assess progress regarding the development of the cultural and creative ecosystem. 

To support the report, the Commission will establish an EU cultural data hub (Q3 2027), which will collect and analyse cultural data, monitor trends, and share best practices. 

As the organisation that pioneered the State of Culture report last year—ours was more qualitative and aspirational—Culture Action Europe notes the title (dare we say, with a certain déjà vu) but welcomes this initiative and hopes it will become a regular annual monitoring tool with harmonised, compatible data. The hub will leverage existing data while coordinating more effectively with Eurostat and national statistical bodies. 

The report will also monitor artistic freedom, which is a positive development. At the same time, Culture Action Europe continues to advocate for integrating artistic freedom into the Rule of Law Report and for developing an Artistic Freedom Act, as these mechanisms could provide strong protections through either funding conditionalities (infringements on artistic freedom → no money for a government) or legally binding norms. 

2. A structured EU dialogue with cultural stakeholders (Q3 2026)

The Commission aims to set up a structured dialogue with cultural and creative stakeholders to discuss the State of Culture Report and track progress on the Culture Compass’s key directions. This platform will allow for exchange, co-creation, and alignment on policy priorities. 

Under the previous strategy, from 2015 to 2023, the Commission ran a structured dialogue known as Voices of Culture. Last year, it announced a tender for a new structured dialogue with civil society on cultural policy, covering the period from 2025 to 2028. The open exchange held in March 2025 between the Commission and cultural networks on the future of the Culture Compass will serve as a model and inspiration for the new structured dialogue. 

3. Enhancing young people’s access to cultural heritage

The Commission proposes: 1) establishing a voluntary framework for the mutual recognition of national culture passes [a national scheme that gives young people credit or discounts to spend on cultural activities and goods via a card or app] Q4 2027; 2) promoting the DiscoverEU Culture Route in Q2 2026; and 3) expanding the cultural offer within the EU youth discount card under Erasmus+ in Q2 2026. 

Culture Action Europe previously proposed the idea of European culture passes. The Compass sensibly builds on from what already exists: in practice, countries with passes (e.g., France, Italy) could enable cross-border use for cultural trips abroad. The details of how this will be coordinated across member states remain to be seen. 

4. EU Artists’ Charter

The Commission will propose an EU Artists’ Charter (which also addresses other workers in the cultural and creative sectors) to outline fundamental principles, guidance, and commitments for fair working conditions in the cultural and creative sector, and to strengthen compliance and accountability, particularly among recipients of EU cultural funding. This proposal clearly links to the working conditions conditionality introduced in the AgoraEU proposal. 

In the Sector Blueprint, Culture Action Europe advocated for the adoption of an EU Charter on Working Conditions in the Cultural Sector that would establish a common definition of artists and cultural workers, along with key principles such as fair pay, fair share, and fair systems. 

The Commission’s Charter will likely not be legally binding but will carry significant moral and political weight for its signatories. Its content and design are not yet defined; the Charter will be discussed for the first time at the High-Level Round Table on Working Conditions on 8 December 2025. It will be important to ensure that the Charter can be endorsed by a broad range of stakeholders, including Member States, social partners, and cultural networks, and not only by recipients of EU funds, who are generally already committed to fair practices. 

The Commission also plans to use the upcoming Fair Labour Mobility Package to ‘modernise, simplify, and digitalise the rules and procedures for labour mobility and free movement.’ Initiatives like the European Social Security Pass are expected to directly benefit those involved in cross-border mobility in the cultural sector, the Commission promises.  

5. AI Strategy for Cultural and Creative Sectors (Q1 2027).

The Compass foresees a new AI strategy for cultural and creative sectors. This is one of the most controversial areas: while the Commission in general seeks to be AI-optimistic and competitive, cultural stakeholders have repeatedly warned that big tech often uses cultural data without permission or payment. The recently adopted AI Act does little to address these concerns, and it is worth noting fears that the upcoming Digital Omnibus could also weaken central protections of EU digital acquis in the name of simplification, including core elements of the GDPR and AI Act. 

The Compass frames AI as an ‘opportunity’ but also acknowledges copyright challenges. The upcoming strategy will need to balance conflicting interests between tech companies and the cultural sector, especially with the upcoming review of the Copyright Directive. 

6. EU Strategy for International Cultural Relations

The Compass proposes, together with the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, to update an EU Strategy for International Cultural Relations that reinforces a value-based approach, a direction we also advocated for in the Sector Blueprint. The Commission will launch a new phase of the Cultural Relations Platform, placing engagement at its core and focusing on co-owned dialogue, co-creation, and sustainable partnerships.  

Honourable mentions 

• launching a new phase of the EU4Culture Programme in the Eastern Neighbourhood region (Q4 2025); 

• adopting a Communication and a proposal for a Council Recommendation on the future of the New European Bauhaus (Q4 2025); 

• establishing a Youth Cultural Ambassadors network to discuss culture policy matters (starting 2026); 

• developing a new legal basis for the European Capitals of Culture beyond 2033 and the European Heritage Label (Q2 2026);  

• launching a new European Research and Innovation Partnership [between the Commission, public and private partners] for Resilient Cultural Heritage, co-funded by Horizon Europe (Q2 2026); 

• promoting the ‘Made in Europe’ label to increase the discoverability of European creative content online; 

• continued support for Culture Moves Europe, the Platform scheme under Creative Europe (cascading grants) and dedicated internship programmes under Erasmus+;  

• establishing a new European Prize for Performing Arts (Q2 2027); 

• presenting EU guidelines on culture, health and well-being (2028).
  

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Where do we need to be cautious?

Implementation. The strategy is quite ambitious, but its success will ultimately depend on implementation, which in turn relies heavily on the operational capacity of the Commission’s various directorates-general. 

Moreover, the Compass is ultimately a framework designed to outline coordination, responsible approaches, and available resources, rather than solve problems directly. Many actions depend on documents yet to be developed, so civil society must actively contribute to ensure they address the sector’s real challenges. 

Timing. Planning is further complicated by the fact that the Commission is operating between two long-term budget cycles. The outcome of future AgoraEU negotiations remains uncertain, and the associated funding instruments are not yet at the Commission’s disposal. Funding for many initiatives in the Compass may only materialise through AgoraEU once the programme is formally agreed. This is why most actions are scheduled before 2028, until the end of the current Creative Europe programme 2021-2027.  

Reality check. A question remains: is the Compass future-proof? Is it flexible enough to respond to crises? Putin, Trump, Xi; drones, tariffs, fires; blackouts, cyberattacks, pandemics—when this hits again, will the Compass hold and bring capitals along?  

Part of the answer lies in the ‘Team Europe’ approach, also referenced in the Compass. In a nutshell, it is when the Commission, willing Member States, and their development banks pool plans, resources, and delivery mechanisms to implement joint projects under a single ‘act-as-one’ approach. A good example is ‘Team Europe for Cultural Heritage in Ukraine,‘ where 24 EU countries launched over 70 initiatives in 2025. The Compass proposes continuing the Team Europe approach in ‘regions facing natural disasters, armed conflict, or economic instability.’ 

Another safeguard to keep the Compass grounded is the active involvement of civil society and cultural stakeholders. The strategy proposes tools to support this, including the new structured dialogue and the Youth Cultural Ambassadors network. We hope these mechanisms will be truly open, inclusive, transparent, and accountable, giving artists a sear at the decision-making table—a goal Culture Action Europe has long advocated for in its Ask Pay Trust the Artist campaign. 

Conclusion

The Culture Compass sends a strong political signal. At a time when Commission rhetoric is dominated by competitiveness and defence, culture has secured a strategy that focuses on sector needs and argues for dedicated policies and funding.  

That signal is reinforced by the proposed joint declaration, which we expect to be signed soon. There has not been a tripartite, culture-specific declaration before, so this would be an unprecedented commitment by the Commission, Parliament and Council. 

The Compass is only the beginning of the journey. Many initiatives will need to be developed and implemented to make it truly operational and effective. The process so far has mattered as much as the product: the Commission has actively listened and collaborated with stakeholders, setting a tone that should guide the next steps. 

In this spirit, Europe for Culture, Culture for Europe gains additional meaning: culture as a sector with rights and needs; Europe as the collective commitment of institutions, Member States and citizens to uphold them. The Compass shows the direction, yet how far we go will be measured by the strength of our partnerships and commitment to sustained investment.