The letter states that culture is of utmost importance to support everyone that finds themselves being confined to their homes during the corona crisis. Culture is an essential factor of psychological well-being and play a key role in strengthening the sense of community and inclusivity of our society.
Read and share the open letter and support the initiative by signing the online petition: http://saveEUculture.eu.
This letter was co-signed by:
- 105 MEPs: These MEPs represent 6 out of the 7 political groups, as no one from the Identity and Democracy Group co-signed, and also includes non-attached members
- 312 associations from the cultural and creative sectors (CCS), which claim to be representing more than 1 million EU citizens working in the CCS
In the short run, the signatories demand the following immediate and ‘un-bureaucratic’ initiatives:
- “Offer financial aid to the Cultural and Creative Sectors (CCS) and the whole cultural ecosystem, including through the Corona Response Investment Initiative, proportionally to the size of the CCS in our economy.
- Ensure access to unemployment and other social benefits for all cultural professionals, with particular attention to freelancers, self-employed and others in atypical forms of work, including creators coming from cultural minorities, and grant them compensation for the discontinuation of income.
- Provide emergency aid to cultural professionals, especially the independent ones, as well as to small and medium-sized cultural companies, for example in the form of tax relief, loans, (micro-)credits, compensation for losses and non-recoverable costs.
- Implement fiscal measures to relieve the pressure on the CCS and stimulate a recovery in the consumption of cultural services.”
In the long run, the signatories demand that once the COVID-19 crisis is over, the EU must:
- “Set up an adequately funded stimulus package for cultural creators all over Europe in order to tackle the long-term effects on the CCS. This package should also include legal facilitation for the mobility of artists and their works, e.g. regarding taxation and visa regulations.
- Protect the CCS from future shocks, in particular by reinforcing its social dimension and adapting rules on social security and labour rights, taking into account the diversity of the CCS workforce.
- Increase public funding to arts and culture while also ensuring their access to other sources of finance, for example by reinforcing the availability of CCS Guarantee Facility.”
