Which objective(s) does the Commission pursue?

The Creative Europe programme was established by Regulation (EU) 1295/2013¹ as a framework programme for the previous Culture, MEDIA and MEDIA Mundus Programmes. It is composed of the MEDIA sub-programme, Culture sub-programme and a common, cross-sectoral strand. The programme consists of actions that the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency predominantly implements.

According to the interim evaluation (final), the programme delivered in terms of relevance, external coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and EU added value.

The programme aims at aligning with the objectives of the New Agenda for Culture as adopted on 22 May 2018, as well as accompanying the Union’s Digital Single Market policies. The general objectives of the Programme are twofold: to safeguard, develop and promote European cultural and linguistic diversity and heritage and to increase the competitiveness of the European cultural and creative sectors, in particular the audiovisual sector. The Programme sets out the specific objectives for each strand, focussing:

• For the CULTURE strand: on cooperation and mobility of organisations, professionals and artists to support the cultural, economic, social and external dimension of the cultural and creative sectors (except the audio-visual sector);

• For the MEDIA strand: on promoting cooperation, competitiveness, scalability and the innovation potential of Europe’s audiovisual sector as well as supporting the creation, circulation and promotion of European works;

• For the cross sectoral strand, on innovative cross-sectoral actions, including actions to promote a diverse and pluralistic media environment and media literacy, as well as on Creative Europe desks in participating countries to disseminate knowledge about the programme.

In line with the findings of the interim evaluation and the feedback collected in public consultations and in specific sectoral events, the Commission proposal builds on the achievements of the current programme and, at the same time, adapts it to the fast changing environment of the cultural and creative sectors. Scaling up of results should be obtained by refocussing certain actions while there are also new areas in which action is deemed as having European added value.

The Commission proposal aims to increase efficiency by creating synergies with other EU programmes and matching resources in favour of investment in the cultural and creative sector with a clear European added value. The Financial Guarantee Facility for the Cultural and Creative Sector, currently implemented within the Programme, is now to be included into “Invest EU”. This reflects the overall consistency of Commission policy regarding financial instruments.

The acknowledgment of complementarity between different funding levels is incorporated clearly into the proposal for the programme.

Estimated savings and benefits

Concrete simplification benefits for the beneficiaries are expected from the following elements of the proposal:

➢ Cumulative funding will be possible.

➢ A Seal of Excellence should allow high quality applications to be funded by programmes under the next Multiannual Financial Framework Common Provisions Regulation.

➢ The mutual insurance mechanism aims at concretely avoiding beneficiaries’ costs for bank guarantees due to low financial capacity check results.

The use of a single entry point for external users to participate in the grants life cycle (i.e. a participant portal), including an overall grant management system has an important role to play in simplifying the access to the programme. MEDIA support will be made more effective by streamlining actions and their corresponding financial transactions; while CULTURE will continue focussing on the successful actions and tackle newly emerging market failures by specifically targeted sectoral action. Overall, stakeholders from the culture and creative sectors will be able to benefit from a "one-stop-shop" approach.

¹ Regulation (EU) 1295/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 establishing the Creative Europe Programme (2014-2020) and repealing regulations 1718/2006/EC, 1855/2006/EC and 1041/2009/EC

Outcome of Legislative Procedure

The Commission proposals mentioned above, such as Cumulative funding, a Seal of Excellence and a mutual insurance mechanism were retained in the adopted legal act. Furthermore, the legal act urges the Commission to substantially simplify of bureaucratic procedures and to choose forms of funding and the methods of implementation under this Regulation on the basis of their ability to achieve the specific objectives of the actions and to deliver results, taking into account, in particular, the costs of controls, the administrative burden, and the need for administrative simplification, in particular in the application process, for the benefit of all parties involved, and the expected risk of non-compliance. The interim evaluation will look into the results of these measures.