Policy update: September 2026
Since the Culture Compass dropped in November 2025, Brussels has mostly been dealing with its fallout and the fine print. After clarifications of the 2025 Creative Europe Cooperation call scandal, where dozens of applicants got quietly downgraded over an "associated partner" loophole, and which the Commission speedily provided answers and safeguards to, December brought the first real test of the Compass's flagship promise. This came about with the EU Artists' Charter, discussed at a high-level round table. Heading into the new year, CAE floated a genuinely fresh funding idea worth watching: redirecting Big Tech's digital fines (DSA/DMA/AI Act penalties) into culture funding. We got vocal too, and published our own statement condemning the abrupt redirection of Horizon Europe research money towards military purposes, calling for the programme to stay a "defence-free zone" and warning that socio-cultural centres are democratic infrastructure, not collateral. Beyond this, it was becoming very clear that culture was basically vanishing from the next Horizon Europe programme altogether and collective sector action called for €3 billion ring-fenced for culture-related R&I.
From here it's all about the money, specifically AgoraEU, the new mega-programme merging Creative Europe and CERV for 2028–2034. As talks kicked off, one of the main concrete worries flagged concerned the audiovisual sector potentially being carved out of the "cultural and creative sectors" definition entirely. More generally, opinions were diverse and conversation kept tackling concerns such as whether AgoraEU was going to result in the social and cultural sectors compete for funding (instead of strengthening collaboration), over-force collaboration, or be too rigid about it (including predetermining the societal goals which culture and creative sectors should focus on in order to qualify for funding, therefore inhibiting actual experimentation and innovation), and so on.
Momentum kept building through spring: policy events looked at putting the Compass into practice, whilst the Parliament’s Culture Committee pushed for €12 billion for AgoraEU (as well as specific budget lines for each strand, clear separations between components, and extending the digital fines mechanism to Erasmus+). Around the same time, we put our own vision on the table: drawing on the FULCRUM project and its Visions for the Future brainstorm cycle, together with project partners we published a manifesto arguing that socio-cultural centres are not a luxury but essential civic infrastructure, and making the case for stable funding, trust-based governance, and long-term support. Then, 550+ organisations signed an open letter demanding a bigger AgoraEU pot. And lastly, some good news: the Parliament officially backed €10.72 billion for AgoraEU, a 25% increase and the biggest proportional bump of any programme in its budget category. Sector representatives in Brussels were cautiously optimistic in general at this point, clear-eyed that Parliament's number was still the bare minimum, not the win.
When negotiations reached the Council, a proper plot-twist: the Council’s June negotiating box proposed a 33% cut versus Parliament's position - roughly €500 million less a year. To put the proportion of the cut into perspective, this would mean putting Creative Europe's Culture strand below the annual budget of a single national library, specifically the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). At least, just two days later, EU institutions formally signed the Joint Declaration on Culture, a first-ever tripartite commitment and defining moment that established a strategic framework to position culture as a fundamental right, a public good, and a strategic priority at the heart of the European project as a whole. But, uhm… we need numbers!
That’s why the summer closed with the fight for money continuing in full swing. The Name, Place, Fund coalition wrote an open letter to the incoming Irish Presidency demanding for culture to stay embedded in research and competitiveness funding, followed by 140+ organisations once again pressing EU policymakers for a stronger AgoraEU budget. This was a signal that, strategy secured, the real battle currently is making sure it's actually funded.