Micallef: ‘We can use culture to achieve the EU’s strategic goals’ – Insights from the Cultural Deal for Europe Policy Conversation 2025
The largest cultural policy conversation of the year took place on 4 February 2025 in Brussels, led by civil society—Culture Action Europe, the European Cultural Foundation, and Europa Nostra. The discussion revolved around the Cultural Deal for Europe, a call to prioritise culture in EU policies, develop a robust culture strategy, and allocate 2% of EU funding to culture.
The event brought together Commissioner for Culture Glenn Micallef and the European Commission officials, five Members of the European Parliament, including the CULT Committee Chair Nela Riehl, the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU, cultural attachés from EU Member States, and representatives of European cultural networks and organisations—altogether 120 participants engaged on spot and 1000 online.
Through four panels and four on-stage interviews, Culture Action Europe distils its key messages and outcomes of the Policy Conversation.
- Culture’s recognition should reach beyond the cultural sector and be hardwired into the Commission’s flagship policies—from the new Competitiveness Fund and security and preparedness agenda to research, skills development, and AI regulation.
- Culture is where democracy is attacked first—so it must be where the EU’s resistance begins. That means keeping the cultural ecosystem sustainable: trusting and paying artists, ensuring autonomy of cultural organisations, empowering civil society, supporting grassroots cultural projects, investing in cultural infrastructure, and embedding Artistic Freedom in the Rule of Law Report.
- European institutions must learn from Eastern Europe’s cultural resilience (Ukraine, Georgia, and Serbia). The EU should support candidate states and neighbouring countries fighting for European values by strengthening Georgia’s and Serbia’s civil society and allocating 2% of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine’s cultural recovery.
- The Culture Compass should guarantee a strong, well-funded Creative Europe programme to support European artists and cultural content. While providing a unifying strategic framework, the Compass should preserve the cultural component in other policy areas, as it strengthens the sector’s open and co-creative nature.
- Embrace the real power of culture. It is neither an asset, nor a luxury, nor a duty. Culture defies immediate utility and purpose; it is an act of freedom and, in that, the essence of Europe itself.
Follow along as we unpack each message step by step.
- Culture’s recognition should reach beyond the cultural sector and be hardwired into the Commission’s flagship policies.
25—that’s how many times speakers used culture and important in the same sentence over five hours. But a reality check tells a different story.
The Competitiveness Compass merely states that the EU is home to vibrant creative and cultural industries. The BUDG Committee draft report on the next Multiannual Financial Framework briefly mentions support for cultural and creative industries. The draft AI Code of Practice dismisses artists’ calls for fair remuneration. Step outside the event’s reality, and culture is nowhere to be found in the official documents.
And this is despite strong backing of the EU’s support for culture. Let’s count: we have Commissioner Micallef, fully committed. All 27 Ministers of Culture recently signed a letter supporting Creative Europe’s continuation. The Polish Presidency made its position on culture funding crystal clear—Marta Cienkowska said, ‘We have to fight for money, and we will fight for money.’ In the European Parliament, Hannes Heide (S&D) and Hélder Sousa-Silva (EPP) have raised the ambition, calling for more than 2% for culture in the next MFF—exceeding what the sector is currently asking for.
This year’s Cultural Deal for Europe Policy Conversation was a strong statement in support of culture and increased funding. But this is just the first step. The statement must break out of the culture bubble and translate into official decisions—starting with the Culture Compass as part of the Commission’s Work Programme for 2025.
The European Commission will launch other initiatives that could intersect with cultural advocacy. Just a few examples: the Preparedness Union Strategy (culture as part of a comprehensive security model); the Union of Skills (creativity as a top skill of the future); the Start-up and Scale-up Strategy (relevant for creative businesses, cutting red tape); the Competitiveness Fund (will Creative Europe be part of it?); the European Research Area Act (artistic research should be recognised there); the upcoming FP10 (Culture Cluster needs to be maintained); the European Democracy Shield (where culture should be a pillar); and, of course, the AI Act implementation.
The cultural sector must coordinate a strong advocacy across policy spheres and expand its reach, while the European Union must translate its commitment to culture into concrete policy decisions.
- Culture is where democracy is attacked first—so it must be where the EU’s resistance begins.
Culture is not [only] an industry. We shouldn’t use economic arguments alone to advocate for culture’s value. These messages drew applause from the audience.
However, when speaking about culture, politicians have already adopted the language of competitiveness. ‘Either we are colonised by Silicon Valley, or we make an effort to stand as equals in the world,’ warned Nicolas Schmit. ‘Culture is big business—major powers invest in it because it’s cheaper than weapons but more effective at shaping minds,’ added Zoltán Tarr. ‘European culture is competing with national cultures,’ said Laurence Farreng. Several speakers framed culture as soft power. (By the way, with USAID dismantled, is the EU ready to step up and fill the void?)
This rhetoric weaponises culture—an understandable response to today’s geopolitical landscape and the weaponisation of culture by global superpowers. Yet, it overlooks another powerful dimension of culture: its foundation in values.
At Culture Action Europe, we argue that culture indeed makes us competitive—not just in markets, but in our values. As Lars Ebert put it, ‘Human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law, and human rights are non-negotiable values of Europe, and they make us competitive in the world.’
These values must first be upheld within Europe itself. A Europe that protects and practices its values internally is stronger, more cohesive, and more credible on the world stage. Competitiveness is not only about prosperity—it’s about the integrity of the European model.
If we really want to task culture with fixing democracy, boosting competitiveness, and unifying societies, discussions on democracy should begin with the cultural sector itself—because culture is always the first to come under attack and should therefore be carried as much from the bottom up as it is empowered from the top down.
To keep European societies democratic, the EU needs to embed structural safeguards in the cultural ecosystem. For example, introduce stronger regulation on AI to curb disinformation, trust cultural organisations and artists to choose their priorities and ways of working, protect the autonomy of cultural spaces and institutions that foster pluralism, and support European cultural content rooted in European values and based on European co-creation. ‘Europe should exist as a space for the values where culture can evolve,’ stated Nela Riehl. ‘Next Creative Europe must focus on the freedom of creation,’ argued Jeanne Brunfaut.
Culture Action Europe calls for artistic freedom to be included in the European Commission’s Rule of Law Report. If the EU won’t even monitor violations in a report designed as a preventive mechanism, what signal does that send? To the cultural sector, it’s neglect. To autocratic governments, it’s a green light to crack down on artistic freedom.
- European institutions must learn from the resilience and creativity of Eastern Europe’s cultural sector.
Some of the strongest voices in this conversation came from Georgia, Serbia, and Ukraine. The Polish Presidency stood out as particularly articulate and committed. The Culture Ministers’ letter of support for Creative Europe was initiated by Latvia and Estonia. The Policy Conversation once again highlighted Eastern Europe’s rise as a cultural and political force—one that understands firsthand the cost of living next to an autocracy.
This shift is reshaping the dynamics of European integration. It is no longer just candidate and neighbouring countries looking toward the EU; rather, the EU must learn from them. Interventions from Georgia, Serbia, and Ukraine demonstrated how civil society sustains culture under unimaginable conditions so that it continues to drive social change and fuel protests. Beyond culture’s social and political power, Eastern Europe brings deep technical expertise: how to protect cultural heritage under attack, how to mobilise the wider public, and how to engage communities in solving shared challenges.
Laurence Farreng pointed out that the EU no longer has moral or intellectual ambition. Well, it seems that this leadership now belongs to Eastern Europe at large. ‘Creativity takes courage,’ said Annette Christie. Eastern Europe carries Europe’s courage now.
The least the EU can do is break the silence on Serbia, support Georgia’s civil society, and allocate 2% of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine’s cultural recovery. The EU’s support must focus on cities and cultural infrastructure that enable grassroots initiatives and cooperation projects with partners in neighbouring countries who defend European values in the streets.
- The Culture Compass and the Future of Culture Mainstreaming
Culture is currently fragmented across 20 different funding programmes—an approach known as culture mainstreaming. The EU’s new strategic framework for culture, the Culture Compass, promises to unify fragmented cultural policies. Does this mean the end of mainstreaming? Most likely, not. Both Glenn Micallef and Georg Häusler who presented the Compass noted that culture needs to be mainstreamed, more financed. ‘The Culture Compass has to guide that mainstreaming,’ said the Commissioner.
Culture mainstreaming is not problematic as long as breadcrumbs scattered across other programmes do not replace a dedicated, substantial cultural budget.
During the Policy Conversation, we heard calls for a single flagship programme for culture. However, it remains unclear what will happen to cultural components in other funding streams. We shouldn’t have to choose between a strong Creative Europe and cultural calls in other programmes—we need both.
While promising to provide direction across multiple policy areas, the Culture Compass so far appears to be a curated list of trending topics—working conditions, AI, regional development, cultural heritage, and the aspiration to add ‘a human face to the European project so people can identify with it.’ How will it be structured? Will it follow the model of the Work Plan for Culture 2023-2026, with distinct thematic sections? Or will it focus instead on overarching principles and values?
Another question is timing: will the Commission be able to develop a visionary and ambitious strategy already in 2025 to have a guiding framework for the next four years? Culture Action Europe and our members are on board. A promising sign is that Commission representatives—and Nela Riehl—have been clear about an open consultation process with civil society and European institutions. Georg Häusler said, ‘This [event] is the first major opportunity to speak with stakeholders [about the Compass]… We should have a strong debate with a lot of controversy. And if we don’t, we’re not asking the right questions.’
A decisive step by the Commission leadership would be to include the Culture Compass in the Commission’s 2025 Work Programme.
The Policy Conversation made one thing clear: the Culture Compass must go beyond a policy checklist. It’s better not to frame it as a branding tool of the EU either. The Compass needs to answer a fundamental question—how to enable a democratic culture, one that is inclusive, resilient, and actively shaping Europe’s future.
- Embrace the real power of culture.
Metaphorically, culture feeds and shelters; realistically, it doesn’t. We speak endlessly about culture as a social glue, its therapeutic effects on society, or its role in shaping identity, but it does not solve urgent crises or meet basic survival needs. We insist that culture is essential—yet in a world of limited resources, that argument places it in competition with sick children and homeless families.
Some speakers argued that culture is not a luxury or whim, but a necessity. Yet, paradoxically, culture’s very lack of immediate utility is what makes it powerful. It exists beyond necessity, helping to break cycles of vengeance, despair, and inevitability. It gives us choice, a way to imagine something beyond the constraints of reality—a form of actionable hope. Culture and creativity are the ‘experience without experience’, which allows us to engage with possibilities that neither exist nor are tied to tangible experiences.
Instead of justifying culture’s impact, we should embrace its unpredictability—because that is where its power lies. As long as EU policies support creation as an act of transcendence, of imagining new realities—realities that made Europe Europe, from philosophy and universities to the printing press and the EU project itself—they uphold the very value most under attack today: freedom.