The Declaration was first announced at the Open Culture! International Conference that took place from 29-30 May 2025 in Bratislava, Slovakia. NEMO participated at the conference through the participation of Alenka Černelič Krošelj, President of the Slovenian Museums Association, a long-standing NEMO member.
NEMO’s recent Barometer on political pressure on museums also touches upon the limitations of artistic freedom and political influence from governments that the Bratislava declaration highlights. NEMO encourages you to also sign the declaration.
The Declaration arises from a shared and urgent need to resist the threat to artistic freedom across the Member States of the European Union (EU). The signatories call for a robust legal response to the growing influence of governments that seek to control and interfere with the cultural and creative sectors and undermine internationally agreed human rights standards.
The Declaration reflects the lived experience of cultural workers, artists, institutional leaders, and grassroots organisations across the EU who face, on a daily basis, the consequences of rising authoritarianism, censorship, and the erosion of cultural freedoms. The deconstruction of the cultural and creative sectors leads to the deconstruction of our societies.
The undersigned of the Bratislava Declaration issue the following declaration as a call to action directed at the leadership of the European Union:
- We recognise the presence of an acute crisis that threatens artistic freedom and the independence of cultural institutions, within a growing number of EU Member States. The ongoing erosion of cultural infrastructure is profoundly destructive not only to the cultural life in Europe but to the whole European project. We call on the European institutions to urgently acknowledge and address this emergency. Now is the time to act to prevent irreversible damage to Europe’s democratic cultural structures.
- We advocate the right to artistic freedom, where everyone has the right to freely create, interpret, express and share artistic work. It must be upheld without censorship, self-censorship and free from discrimination.
- We demand arms-length independent evaluation processes in the allocation of public funding, where appropriate rules and measures must be implemented to ensure that such allocation of public funding is clearly and transparently decoupled from the expectation of politically compliant behaviour.
- We express unconditional solidarity with everyone targeted by state censorship, intimidation, and bullying through political attacks on artistic expression. Artists who build their practice on vulnerability, marginalised experience, and experimentation are particularly at risk.
- We demand a safe, reliable, and predictable working environment in all areas of the cultural and creative sectors. This means addressing precarious work in the cultural and creative sectors, emphasising equal pay for women, persons with disabilities, and minority groups.
- We urge the development of a specific EU instrument with a structured approach to addressing artistic freedom within the Rule of Law, entitled the European Artistic Freedom Act, enforcing the protection of human rights in a consistent protection of artistic freedom across all Member States. This must not be understood as a symbolic gesture, but as an essential instrument to safeguard artistic freedom and the Rule of Law across all Member States.
