The First Decade of the EU Creative Europe Programme
Written by Mateja Lazar, specialist in the field of international cultural cooperation at the Motovila Institute. Head of the CED Slovenia.
Programme's mission
Creative Europe is the EU's flagship programme supporting cultural and creative sectors (CCS), with a budget of €2.44 billion for the current period, 2021–2027. With an 80% higher budget compared to the previous seven-year period, the programme promotes cultural and linguistic diversity, European heritage, and competitiveness in these sectors. Its key focus includes measures to help these sectors face challenges, enhance their resilience, accelerate digital transformation, contribute to environmental protection, and advance inclusion and gender equality.
Last year marked 10 years since Creative Europe unified the previously separate Culture and MEDIA programmes for the film and audiovisual sector under one umbrella, adding a new Cross-Sectoral strand to foster innovation and collaboration across creative sectors. Additionally, it incorporated the news media sector to ensure support for an independent and pluralistic media environment and promote media literacy.
Creative Europe supports artistic and cultural collaboration and mobility across Europe, encouraging the creation of new European works and their global circulation, fostering innovation, and strengthening the economic and social dimensions of Europe's cultural, audiovisual, and other creative sectors. Its involvement in international contexts and the establishment of long-term international partnerships contribute significantly to the sustainable development of these sectors – including in Slovenia.
Slovenia's achievements in numbers
At Motovila Institute, where we monitor the successes of Slovenian organisations participating in the programme as part of the Creative Europe Desk Slovenia, we are aware of the importance of this flagship instrument of the European Union for the Slovenian culture and film sector. What achievements are we talking about?
During the 2014–2020 period, Slovenian organisations, as leaders of European projects in the Culture, MEDIA, and Cross-Sectoral strands, collectively received €24.3 million in EU support, equating to an average of €3.5 million per year. Due to the recording methods of the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), precise data on funds received by Slovenian organisations as project partners are not available.
However, considering all the supported projects with Slovenian participation, we can conclude that the total amount of EU funding obtained for the 300 or so projects (which is an incredible figure!) in which Slovenian organisations participate as leaders and partners is even higher.
Creative Europe 2014–2020: €24.3 million (€3.5 million annually) for 71 Slovenian organisations (as leaders):
- € 19.4 million for the CULTURE strand;
- € 4.5 million for the MEDIA strand;
- € 0.4 million for the Cross-Sectoral strand.
Ongoing success in 2021–2023
Currently, in the middle of a new 7-year period (2021–2027), Slovenia has already achieved extraordinary results from 2021 to 2023. In just the first three years, 124 Slovenian organisations successfully secured €17.3 million in EU support for 167 projects, amounting to €5.8 million annually!
Creative Europe 2021–2023: €17.3 million (€5.8 million annually) for 123 Slovenian organisations (leaders and partners):
- € 12.3 million for the CULTURE strand;
- € 4.1 million for the MEDIA strand;
- € 0.9 million for the Cross-Sectoral strand.
With a more transparent system for recording EU funding, the current period allows for precise data on the support received by each organisation, regardless of their role (i.e. leader or partner in the case where the call requires an international consortium). Despite some methodological differences in comparing the current and previous programming periods, the data clearly show increased EU support for Slovenia on an annual basis, both in the amount of EU support obtained and in the number of supported organisations.
In total, Slovenia's cultural and creative sectors gained €41.6 million in the first 10 years of Creative Europe, averaging €4.2 million annually for culture and film from the EU budget.
International context
From 2021–2023, Slovenian organisations participated in 11.1% of all supported projects (1,501). Slovenia's remarkable success is also confirmed by the European Commission's "Creative Europe 2021–2022 Monitoring Report" (EC, 2023) where Slovenia is ranked alongside all 40 European countries participating in the programme. In 2021 and 2022, grants were awarded to 3,860 organisations (2,146 in the Culture strand, 1,452 in the MEDIA strand and 262 in the Cross-Sectoral strand) that took on the roles of coordinators (leads), partners or associate partners. The majority of Europe's cultural and creative sector is made up of smaller organisations, as is also the case for Creative Europe beneficiaries – including from Slovenia. In the Culture strand, 73% of beneficiaries were small organisations (with 0–49 employees), with an even higher share in the MEDIA strand (89%) and also in the cross-sectoral strand (80% small organisations).
In the Culture strand, transnational cooperation is at the core of all actions. Projects bring together organisations from different countries (usually at least three organisations from three eligible countries), sizes, types (NGOs, public, private) and sectors. In the 2021 and 2022 calls, Slovenia, with 94 organisations receiving EU support, is ranked an incredible 6th out of the 27 EU Member States, just behind Italy, Germany, Spain, France and Belgium!
Number of organisations receiving EU support by origin (EU Member States - Culture strand)
International networking in the film and AV sector
Slovenia's significant breakthrough in international networking and in managing large-scale partnership projects is also reflected in the results of the MEDIA strand for 2021 and 2022. These achievements reflect the broader trend promoted by Creative Europe of increased cooperation between international actors to achieve greater synergies and strategic impact on the development of the European AV sector.
Since 2022, the Otok Cultural Institute and the Kino Otok - Isola Cinema Festival, with the support of Creative Europe, have been successfully running the Young Selectors for Young Film Audiences (Young4Film) European network of film festivals, linking festivals from Croatia, Italy, Lithuania and Serbia. In the project, young people actively co-create film programmes, which not only refresh festival content but also contribute to the strategic development and empowerment of young audiences – a key segment for the future of the film sector.
Number of organisations receiving EU support by origin (EU Member States - Culture strand) The Slovenian Animated Film Association (DSAF) is consolidating its international reputation as an important promoter of the capacity of the European AV sector. As the leader of the CEE Animation Workshop training programme and partner of the CEE Animation Support Industry Programme, in cooperation with organisations from the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, DSAF, with the support of MEDIA, is working to increase the professionalisation and strengthen the competitiveness of the animation industry in Central and Eastern Europe.
Rise & Shine is a project development and pitching lab for first and second-time professional filmmakers, the projects competing for several awards.
Vertigo remains the most internationally prolific Slovenian independent production company. In 2022, it received MEDIA support for the development of four new Slovenian films under the challenging Call for European Slate Development, where applicants from countries with greater AV capacity than Slovenia are traditionally more successful. As the most sought-after Slovenian co-producer on the international AV market, Vertigo has also been involved in the development of four additional European co-productions with Creative Europe support.
European platforms
In the Culture strand, Slovenia has been very successful throughout the decade, with major successes highlighted in the call for European Platforms, which aims to raise the profile of emerging European artists and develop their careers. Creative Europe co-funded just 16 such platforms in the period 2021–2023, bringing together sectoral organisations from at least 12 different countries. As many as two of them are led by Slovenian organisations.
The Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana leads the European Architecture Platform LINA, which supports young professionals and brings together 28 prominent international players in the field of architecture, steering the sector towards sustainable practices.
Beletrina Publishing Institute leads the Versopolis platform, which creates opportunities for new European poets, connects hundreds of poets and poetry associations around the world, and has already brought together 36 international poetry festivals under its umbrella.
Creative partnerships
It is hard to imagine how Slovenian culture and film could have created so many international collaborations and partnerships without the support of Creative Europe. Most of the actions promote international networking, and Slovenian organisations have created an incredible 743 partnership links with 39 different countries in the period 2021–2023 alone. The majority of these connections were made by organisations supported by the Culture Strand as part of the European cooperation projects – a whopping 563 connections with 38 different countries, with neighbours Italy and Croatia being the most represented with over 50 connections, followed by Spain (45 connections), Belgium (40) and Germany (36), then Serbia and, surprisingly, Greece, both with over 30 connections with Slovenia and then all the other countries, with the only one missing from the list being Liechtenstein.
Slovenia's significant achievements under the Creative Europe programme are testimony to its successful integration into European networks and partnerships and its enhanced cultural and creative presence in the international arena.
European platforms
See also
- Creative Europe Desk Slovenia
- Motovila Institute
- Creative Slovenia up to 2020: a fascinating feat
- A list of ALL Slovene organisations funded by the Culture and MEDIA Programmes 2000-2020
