What could the EU Artists’ Charter look like? Read the sector blueprint
Imagine your ideal working life in culture. How are you paid? Do you have the space and freedom to create? What support can you count on if you fall ill? What happens to your rights if you work across borders?
Now try to document this perfect condition and think about who should do what to make it happen.
That’s what we at Culture Action Europe have been working on over the past five months with our members. Together, we wrote the paper ‘Towards the EU Artists’ Charter: A Sector Blueprint.’ It is our contribution to the forthcoming official document of the European Commission, the EU Artists’ Charter, that we expect mid-2027 and that should outline fundamental principles, guidance, and commitments for fair working conditions in the cultural and creative sectors.
The Action Group on Working Conditions developed the Charter Blueprint, co-facilitated by Culture Action Europe and Platform ACCT. The process brought together 40 representatives of cultural organisations and European networks from our membership.
While developing the Blueprint, the Action Group had to maintain a balance between ambition and feasibility. The EU’s competence over working conditions is limited; many decisions about social protection and taxation are national. That’s why the future Charter must work within existing EU and national law, collective agreements, and respect Member States’ responsibilities and the autonomy of social partners. It cannot itself create new legal obligations or amend existing laws.
But non-binding should not mean inconsequential. The Blueprint is based on the idea of voluntary endorsement. It identifies seven groups that can endorse the Charter: 1) national and 2) regional public authorities, 3) funders, 4) employers or other entities that engage artists, 5) sector representative bodies, 6) education institutions, and 7) artists and workers in the cultural and creative sectors themselves. Structural problems with working conditions cannot be solved by individual organisations alone. They require action across different parties, where each party takes responsibility for what it can influence. The Blueprint sets out commitments suited to each party’s role and capacity, from public authorities improving access to social protection to funders covering the full cost of cultural work and employers offering fair contracts.
All the commitments revolve around three groups of principles: fair pay, fair share and a fair system. They are further broken down into specific principles covering fair contracts, collective bargaining, social protection, mobility, artistic freedom and rights in relation to AI, health and safety at work, diversity and inclusion, etc.
The proposed scope of the Charter Blueprint covers artists and workers across all cultural and creative sectors, regardless of their employment status: employees, the self-employed, freelancers, intermittent and project-based workers, and people who combine several statuses.
The Blueprint proposes a light-touch accountability mechanism to ensure commitments are followed through. Endorsement of the Charter should not place an extra burden on an already overwhelmed sector. Small organisations could complete a simple checklist to show how they put their commitments into practice, while large organisations would provide fuller Charter implementation statements. Reporting should build on information already collected and be adapted to each organisation’s capacity. A public online portal could show who has endorsed the Charter and provide guidance and templates developed by the Commission.
In addition, the Charter Blueprint proposes social conditionality which would apply independently of endorsement. Social conditionality is the idea that receiving EU money should be conditional on beneficiaries complying with social standards and providing decent working conditions. We propose applying this requirement to beneficiaries of AgoraEU.
The Charter alone cannot introduce social conditionality. A relevant provision would first need to be included in the AgoraEU legal base, which is currently being negotiated and where Culture Action Europe is advocating for stronger social guarantees. The Charter could then detail how social conditionality would operate. To keep the administrative burden low, we propose that social commitments would be incorporated into the AgoraEU Model Grant Agreement. Grantees could report on them through documents they already submit, no separate deliverables.
The Blueprint remains an invitation to discussion and further development. It does not anticipate the Commission’s final choices or replace negotiations among governments and social partners. The Blueprint deliberately takes the form of a Charter to show what could be possible if the official Charter matched the urgency of the situation and the sector’s ambition. We look forward to the adoption of the official EU Artists’ Charter and to continuing the dialogue with the Commission, Member States, social partners and the wider cultural sector.