Creative Europe reassociation: position paper

Introduction

This note sets out the Scottish Government’s approach to Creative Europe, the European Union’s principal funding programme in support of the European culture and creative sectors. We wish to see this approach to Creative Europe reflected in the forthcoming talks between the UK Government and the EU.

We support full reassociation to the Creative Europe programme. The association to any EU programme should be viewed as a long-term commitment, to ensure the stability of the relationships that they create and maximise the benefits reaped. We also support full reassociation to the EU’s Erasmus+ programme.  

The Creative Europe Programme

Creative Europe supports a wide range of activity across Europe’s cultural, creative and audiovisual sectors. At its heart is a commitment to the importance of international cultural collaboration and the many positive impacts that it can achieve. The seven-year Creative Europe budget for the period 2021 to 2027 is €2.44 billion.

What Scotland has lost

The previous UK Government took the decision during the Brexit process to end UK participation in Creative Europe, although the UK could have associated as a third country.

With no option to participate in our own right in the programme, this decision also ended Scottish involvement – despite the Scottish Government’s clearly stated position at the time that we wished to continue to participate.

The effect of loss of membership on the creative sector in Scotland has been profound:

Loss of cross-border cultural collaboration

Scottish institutions have lost access to a programme with unique ability to facilitate cross-border cultural collaboration and support transnational creative networks. While the UK was a member of the EU, projects supported in Scotland were linked to 34 of the 41 countries participating in the Creative Europe programme. This key transnational strength of the programme is impossible to replicate at domestic level, and its loss has been highlighted by stakeholders within the cultural sector as being particularly damaging.

Loss of learning, development, innovation and knowledge-sharing

Participating in these projects, and the connections that they facilitated, supported learning, development, innovation and knowledge-sharing across all the diverse elements of the culture sector. Only by reassociating can Scotland regain the cumulative, knock-on benefits the programme brings. 

Loss of funding opportunities

Without access to Creative Europe, Scottish organisations are unable to access significant funding opportunities. Sixty projects in Scotland, across cities and regions as diverse as Dundee, Shetland, South Uist, Inverness, Aberdeenshire, and Lewis, and the central belt, received a total of more than €18.6 million between 2014 and 2020 – which also in turn provided confidence for further funding to be committed. Activities that benefited included film development, youth dance, and delivery of multi-arts festivals.

Scottish organisations contributed to, and benefited from, Creative Europe cooperation at a rate above the UK average, and the impact of ending membership has been particularly marked in Scotland. This effect has been felt not only across the cultural sector itself, but also in wider Scottish society, due to the loss of the diversity and internationalism fostered by participation in projects supported by Creative Europe.

Replacement programmes

The UK has expressed a desire to replicate the benefits of Creative Europe and to establish new programmes domestically to support cultural activity.

However, the only replacement programme established so far is the Global Screen Fund. This fund is supported by a much more limited budget than Creative Europe, and it operates only within the film sector. It does not offer any support at all to the much wider range of activities previously covered in Scotland by Creative Europe, including tourism and heritage. 

Particularly importantly, the Global Screen Fund cannot replicate the network of transnational opportunities established across EU member states and third-party countries associated to Creative Europe.

Creative Scotland, the national body for encouraging arts and creative industries in Scotland, has put in place some programme support with limited capacity to mitigate the loss of access to Creative Europe. This includes support via the Festivals Expo Fund, the Four Nations International Fund, and Arts Infopoint UK.

However, these measures are not designed to directly replace Creative Europe, and the Scottish Government maintains that no national programmes are able to replace Creative Europe’s unique support for cross-border cultural collaboration.

Stakeholder experience

Within the cultural sector, opinion has been clear that Brexit overall has created enormous harm to Scotland’s ability to be involved in international cultural cooperation. This is not limited to loss of Creative Europe participation, but also includes the imposition post-Brexit of additional costs and administrative burdens associated with visas, customs and haulage when travelling to the EU and across its Member States, creating confusion and harming confidence. Creative organisations have also repeatedly raised concerns about the harm done to Scotland’s reputation as an open and outward looking nation – which both supports and is supported by the international work of our creative sectors.

In their response to the consultation on our International Culture Strategy, key stakeholders – including Festivals Edinburgh and Culture Counts – set out a variety of concerns. They stated that Brexit and the loss of access of Creative Europe have led to the loss of opportunities for cultural exchange and imposed barriers to developing international activity in the sector, with knock-on impacts on transnational networks and cultural cooperation.

Organisations within the cultural sector have been vocal about the extensive benefits delivered by Creative Europe while the UK was a member of the EU, enabling innovation, research and development, and supporting organisations to take risks and explore opportunities they otherwise would not have been able to access.

Scottish Government priorities for Creative Europe

The Scottish Government is calling for full participation in the Creative Europe programme, in same way that other third-party nations such as Norway and Iceland participate.

Reassociating to Creative Europe as a third country is feasible, and the UK itself has already undertaken the same process of reassociating to an EU programme, by becoming an associated country to the Horizon Europe programme. 

The benefits of association to Creative Europe extended beyond the cultural sectors, into the Scottish economy and society more broadly. We wish to see those benefits restored.

Conclusion

The UK’s reassociation to the Horizon Europe programme in January 2024 was undoubtedly a welcome move, enabling significant co-operation to take place in research and innovation between Scotland, the whole UK, and the EU. The decision signalled a desire for a long-term future alignment with the EU and which we hope will cover several EU budget cycles.

The anticipated “reset” of the UK-EU relationship presents an opportunity to establish improved conditions for transnational cooperation, including through UK reassociation to a wider range of EU programmes. This would be to the benefit of the people of Scotland, the rest of the UK and the EU – in particular in the fields of educational and cultural collaboration.

Reassociating to the Creative Europe programme can offer a visible, positive quick win, which would underline a renewed commitment to close cooperative working with our EU partners.

We stand ready to work collaboratively with the UK Government and wider partners to re-build a closer relationship with the rest of Europe.   

Creative Europe reassociation: position paper

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