Association des Centres culturels de rencontre
ACCR
Association reconnue d'utilité publique en 1983, l'ACCR fédère des sites patrimoniaux rénovés et réutilisés pour mettre en oeuvre un projet culturel et intellectuel de notre temps qui mobilise l'innovation, le développement territorial, la formation, l'inclusion.
ID: 742314434809-76
Lobbying Activity
Response to A Culture Compass for Europe
29 May 2025
Culture contributes to the EUs key priorities: competitiveness, democracy, and security. But to do so effectively, it needs dedicated policy and funding that give artists and cultural professionals the freedom and means to respond creatively and independently to challenges. ACCR, along our colleagues from Culture Action Europe, proposes the following strategy for the Compass: 1) Strengthen culture as a sector through a standalone Creative Europe programme. 2) Recognise and mainstream support for culture across other policy areas as a vector: instrumental,not instrumentalised. As shown in CAE's State of Culture report, instrumentalisation does little to improve sector conditions. 1. Competitiveness Evidence: Culture is a major EU economic sector that enhances global competitiveness and drives innovation. Each 1 invested in EU cultural action can yield up to 11 in GDP. Yet cultural workers report precarious working conditions; over 2/3rd of them lack adequate social protection of sector representatives support a European status for artists to ensure fair pay and social rights. Generative AI also threatens creators by using their content without consent or compensation. Sustainable use of diglital tools and AI supports our work as heritage practicioners and cultural professionals thus it is important to have an ethical investment and approach. If Europe wants to remain competitive, it must ensure fair conditions for artists, value creativity in innovation, and protect space for experimentation and critical reflection. Our vision of competitiveness is values-based. We recommend: - Establish an EU-wide definition for cultural professionals and set minimum standards for fair working conditions. - Recognise artistic research as a valid knowledge production method in EU research and competitiveness funding 2. Democracy Evidence: Cultural participation builds democracy and cohesion (Porto Santo Charter). It increases civic engagement and strengthens empathy and trust. However, artistic freedom is under threat: 34% of respondents in our Creative Pulse survey reported limitations on their autonomy. Recent examples from Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, etc. show political interference in culture: dismissals, budget cuts, and censorship. At the same time, the EU lacks tools to intervene and allocates just 0.2% of its budget to culture (disproportionately to the sectors value). Our recommendatios are: - Allocate at least 2% of the MFF 2028- 2034 to culture via a strong standalone Creative Europe programme and mainstream suppport for cultural projects in other EU programmes (Structural funds, Research, Training, Citizenship, International Outreach..) -Integrate artistic freedom into the EU Rule of Law Report and support through dedicated action line refugee artists and cultural professionals- Recognise cultural democracy and socially engaged arts as priorities in the Culture Compass and next EU Work Plan for Culture. 3. Security Evidence: Autocratic regimes weaponise culture. In 2024, Russia spent over 1 billion on cultural propagandathree times the Creative Europe budget (335 million). As of March 2025, Russia has damaged 1419 cultural heritage sites and 2233 cultural facilities in Ukraine. China also extends influence through Confucius Institutes, Belt and Road cultural exchanges, TikTok, and media. We believe that investing in cross-border European cultural cooperation rooted in democratic values and increase support for artists and cultural professionals forced to leave their countries are strategic defences against disinformation and hybrid threats. We recommend: - Include culture in the European Democracy Shield, Internal Security Strategy, and ReArm Europe as defence against disinformation and psychological warfare. - Integrate culture into the EU Preparedness Union Strategy and mental health policy to strengthen resilience. - Allocate 2% of Russias frozen assets to Ukraines cultural recovery.
Read full responseResponse to European Democracy Shield
26 May 2025
The ACCR promotes the re-use of heritages for cultural projects as a ressource for more democratic participation and fair sustainable developpement we call for - a strong, standalone Creative Europe programme in the next EU budget helping to counter disinformation, hybrid threats and psychological warfare continuing to support cultural cooperation, networks and platforms, international mobility, artists at risk, and expand access for emerging artists. One concrete proposal is the introduction of micro-grants (from 5,000 to 15,000) for first-time applicants and young artists in the next edition of Creative Europe. These grants could follow a simplified lump-sum model with a short, accessible application process. This light-touch scheme would offer young professionals an opportunity to lead micro-cooperation projects, gain experience with EU funding, and build capacity for future international collaboration The next Creative Europe programme should also have its own standalone budget line in the next MFF. To contribute to sustaining democracy EU needs to provide the sector with its own funding stream. Merging Creative Europe with other programmes will diminish the outreach and impact of both cultural projects and social and civic organisations. We support transversal cooperation however the full creative and experimental potential of the arts depends on their autonomy and independence in decision-making and content creation. - including artistic freedom in the Rule of Law report Freedom of artistic expression and the autonomy of cultural institutions are increasingly under pressure across the EU. According to the Eurobarometer on Europeans attitudes towards culture, 20% of Europeans disagree with the statement that artists in their country can freely express their ideas without fear of censorship or retaliation by the government. Censorship, political dismissals of cultural leaders, budget cuts aimed at cultural institutions that present non-traditional or experimental workmany of these infringements originate from ruling parties, leaving artists with little protection at the national level. To address this, we support CAE recommendations to include a dedicated section on Artistic Freedom in the Rule of Law Report. This could either be a separate section alongside the current four, or part of a broader Freedom of Expression pillar that should cover media, academic, and artistic freedoms. As the Commission is already reviewing the structure of the Report to potentially include the Single Market dimension, this is the right moment to address the current gap and ensure artistic freedom is fully recognised. -safeguards for democracy in the implementation of the AI Act AI has been instrumentalised by autocracies. For example, Russia feeds pro-Kremlin narratives into AI training datasets, as exposed by the Atlantic Council. Their network of propaganda websites, branded as Pravda (Truth), is repeatedly cited on Wikipedia, one of the key data sources for training language models. AI systems do not discern between truth and falsehood; they amplify statistically common content. If authoritarian narratives dominate training data, AI will inevitably reproduce and reinforce them.
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