News

Today, the Executive Committee of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) launched the multilingual digital platform inviting citizens to contribute to shaping the (ir) future of Europe. The freshly launched digital tool will allow citizens from across the EU to contribute to the Conference from an active and bottom-up approach. The prerogative of the platform is to enable…

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated already existing precariousness and fragile working conditions in the cultural and creative sectors. The pandemic has caused immense losses in revenue opportunities, drastically decreased performance and exhibition possibilities for artists and cultural workers. This resulted in an average -31% of the turnover (with peaks of up to -90% in some subsectors): more than tourism and…

Culture is getting a seat at the global political table in rather non-traditional settings. The commitment to mainstream culture across the policy fields and to include it in the recovery strategies may be further reinforced by this year’s G20.  The G20 (Group of Twenty) is the main forum for international cooperation on the most important issues of global governance, which…

The New European Bauhaus (NEB) is about to take off. After the launch of the co-design phase in January, the initiative that aims at making the Green Deal a cultural project is now taking shape. Contributions from more than 30 countries in the EU and beyond have already been registered on the online portal of the New European Bauhaus, proposing ideas,…

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated pre-existing trends, including unprecedented income loss, growing precariousness, and inequalities in the European cultural ecosystem. Facing destitution, many workers may leave the sector and thousands of institutions may close. With them, accumulated knowledge and skills would be permanently lost, and the cultural ecosystem would be profoundly weakened. A solution to tackle this challenge includes strengthening…

European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) Civil Society Days 2021, which took place between March 1 and March 5, focused on  Sustainable Recovery for the Future of Europe. Culture Action Europe was present at this annual event facilitating the discussion on the role of culture and education in Europe’s post-pandemic recovery. A special focus was given to the Cultural Deal…

The month of March is full of celebrations: from Zero Discrimination Day to International Women’s Day. This year is however different and the least festive one. It has been one year without culture, with the sector being the first to be confined in March 2020 and the last one to re-open.  Cultural and creative sectors remain the most damaged by…

Today, the world celebrates International Women’s Day. Despite considerable progress, gender disparity in the cultural and creative sectors continues to persist. Works of women artists are underrepresented in the permanent collections in Europe and the US. Auction sales are no different – female artists’ works sell with a remarkable discount compared with men’s. Women artists still face significant difficulties to…

“Given the exceptional nature of the crisis, […] if the rule of law is not upheld, then the public health emergency risks becoming a human rights disaster, with negative effects that will long outlast the pandemic itself,” said Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the early beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Nothing far from reality.  Worldwide,…