AgoraEU: Reframing Culture as a Force for Democracy?
18 September
By Elena Polivtseva
In July 2025, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, presented a proposal for the EU’s future budget - the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) 2028-2034. Under this proposal, Creative Europe would disappear as a stand-alone programme, merging with the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) under a new funding instrument, AgoraEU, which is divided into three strands: Creative Europe-Culture, Media+, and CERV+.
The proposal foresees a doubling of the budgets of both Creative Europe and CERV. With an overall envelope of €8.6 billion, AgoraEU would allocate €4.9 billion to the Culture and MEDIA+ strands for 2028-2034. This represents a significant increase and demonstrates the EU’s commitment to strengthening culture and values, amidst mounting pressures to invest in economic competitiveness and security.
In this article, we highlight shifts both in the discourse and in the practical design of the future programme, as well as broader signs of change in the EU’s approach to supporting and valuing culture. This evolving perspective will become even more evident in the upcoming Culture Compass for Europe, the new cultural strategy currently under development and scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of 2025. The future AgoraEU programme will serve as one of the key tools for implementing the Culture Compass. Therefore, it is essential to closely examine the changes in discourse and approach introduced in the proposal for regulation on AgoraEU, while also acknowledging that, at this early stage of negotiations, the document may intentionally remain vague in several areas. Furthermore, as a ‘proposal’, this document is intended for debate and revision before it becomes a final regulation.
The new architecture
The programme results from a merger between the two strands of the current Creative Europe and the Citizens, Equality, Rights & Values (CERV) programme. The latter supports civic projects focused on promoting citizens’ democratic engagement and participation, equality, non-discrimination, as well as safeguarding core EU values, democratic principles, and the rule of law.
Why this integration? There is no explicit political rationale behind it. Officially, it is explained as a response to the Political Guidelines of the President of the European Commission, which call for the ‘funding-follows-policy’ principle and a more impactful use of EU resources. The structure of AgoraEU is presented as offering an ‘optimal balance between simplification and policy relevance’. While policy relevance should arguably not be compromised at all, the new architecture is explained as a pathway to simplify access to and use of funds - something the sector explicitly called for in the public consultation held in late spring 2025. As cited in the regulation proposal, around half of respondents to this consultation pointed to issues such as administrative burden and complex compliance rules, which ‘reflect concerns not only with regulatory complexity but also with fragmentation between instruments and inefficiencies in delivery’. It is not clear, however, how many people have explicitly connected solving these issues with a possible merger of Creative Europe with another programme. The new programme set-up is intended to address these multiple problems, though it remains to be seen how exactly bringing two programmes together will do so.
The value of culture
The overall rationale of the programme is framed around the EU's values and the state of its democracy. When it comes to the value of culture and media outlined in the opening sections of the regulation, there is a strong emphasis on its contribution to the EU’s identity, inclusive and participatory governance, active citizenship, equality, and non-discrimination. Culture’s economic value and its contribution to competitiveness, growth, and jobs receive less attention than in the current Creative Europe regulation, and far less than in the previous edition of the programme (2014–2021). At the same time, AgoraEU falls under the heading of Competitiveness, prosperity and security rather than under a dedicated culture or values heading (which does not exist), suggesting the Commission’s framing of cultural and democratic strength as assets for economic and security resilience.
Notably, the emphasis on migration, ‘integration’ of newcomers, and intercultural dialogue - somewhat prominent in Creative Europe - has also receded, overshadowed by broader concerns about democracy, societal resilience, and European values. The only specific group highlighted for increased access to culture in the AgoraEU Creative Europe - Culture strand is young people.
The cultural and creative sectors are described in the AgoraEU proposal for regulation as ‘public goods generating meaning and embodying the values of the Union’. This rhetorical shift may reflect the ongoing global discussion on culture as a public good, initiated by UNESCO through its MONDIACULT Declaration (2022), which sought to counterbalance the prevailing discourse centred on the economic value of culture. In economic terms, public goods are resources or services that are available to everyone, cannot be allocated efficiently through market mechanisms, and therefore require government provision or support. However, the global debate on culture as a public good has not yet gone far enough to reshape cultural policies, and this reference to ‘public goods’ in the AgoraEU proposal is not accompanied by a clear explanation of what it should mean in practice.
Culture’s autonomy
Some in the sector approached the merger of programmes with concern, warning that including culture within a broader scope could weaken its political autonomy and undermine the long-term guarantee of dedicated EU support for cultural and creative sectors.
The conflation can also create competition if clarity regarding the division of funds is not ensured. For instance, the MEDIA+ strand has significantly broadened its scope, now integrating support for the news media sector alongside the audiovisual and video game industries. Among its priorities, the strand is expected to ‘contribute to a free, viable and diverse Union information ecosystem, notably by supporting free and independent journalism and news media, enhancing citizens’ access to trustworthy information, and tackling disinformation’. The film sector has raised concerns about the lack of clarity regarding how funds will be allocated between the audiovisual and news sectors. Furthermore, if the proposed AgoraEU budget is cut further during the MFF negotiations, film advocates warn that funding for the audiovisual sector may be especially at risk, as the strong political focus on combating disinformation could lead to resources being redirected toward the news media industry.
In more general terms, if culture is pooled with other priorities within a single money pot, it may be more vulnerable to cuts when political agendas shift than if it had its own separate budget line. Furthermore, concerns related to artistic freedom were expressed in the letter to the European Commission by the Rapporteur for Creative Europe, MEP Emma Rafowicz, and several shadow rapporteurs, arguing that the merge of programmes 'risks blurring the boundaries between cultural and civic objectives, erasing the specificity of each adding to bureaucratic complexity, weakening the programme’s impact, and most worryingly, undermine artistic freedom’.
Seeing the proposed outline of the programme, however, it is clear that the boundaries between fields are respected and preserved. Yet broader consents about culture’s political weight may be justified. For instance, on the Commission’s new webpage about the MFF 2028-2034 proposal, under the question ‘How will the EU budget affect people and EU countries?’, culture is not mentioned at all - even in the most relevant line: ‘Stronger support for civil society, media freedom, environment, and democratic values through the new AgoraEU programme’. This raises the question: would culture be ignored when presenting the impacts of the EU’s future budget if Creative Europe were to continue as a standalone programme? This may well be an unintentional omission, but it illustrates how the visibility and influence of culture at the EU level can gradually wane.
Culture, democracy, imagination
The proposal states that the new programme ‘seeks to streamline the EU intervention in the areas of culture, media and equality, citizens, rights and values, exploiting connections and synergies where relevant, while respecting the singularity and specific needs of each of these policy areas’. Indeed, the singularity and specific needs of each sector are clearly acknowledged in the proposal, reflecting the current set-up in which culture and media are separate strands within Creative Europe and CERV operates as an autonomous programme. But what about synergies and connections: can they already be found in the discourse and architecture of the new proposal?
It is not easy to identify a clear red thread uniting the diverse fields and actors covered by the programme - from artists and creative entrepreneurs to journalists and human rights defenders. However, ‘democratic resilience’, ‘societal preparedness’, and ‘cultural and civic engagement’ appear repeatedly as intended areas of impact, suggesting that these are the key synergies to which all sectors - culture, audiovisual, news, and civil society - are expected to contribute. Ultimately, the programme’s logic revolves around strengthening civic engagement, enabled through meaningful participation in various spheres of public life, including political, social, economic, and cultural. Its rationale stems from the recognition that the Union’s values face both internal and external pressures. More sector-specific issues are also acknowledged, such as fragmentation within the cultural and creative sectors and their markets, precarious working conditions, attacks on artistic freedom, digital developments, and the effects of climate change (particularly in relation to heritage). Yet the challenges identified for the sectors covered by the programme are also presented with a strong focus on democratic backsliding in Europe, declining trust in institutions, foreign interference, inequalities, and discrimination.
This overall rhetoric about values and challenges undermining them drives a rhetoric of urgency: to withstand threats, defend, protect, preserve, and safeguard what Europe considers a vital part of its identity. While these calls are timely and surely justified, the guiding values of a programme supporting creativity, culture, and the arts noticeably lack a more positive, innovative, and courageous outlook: one that emphasises imagining, inventing, and inspiring new futures - areas in which artists and creative workers excel. While culture is undoubtedly fundamental for democracy and civic rights, could it be that we are witnessing an even greater departure from the political recognition of culture’s imaginative potential?
Regarding the CERV+ strand, there is no clear evidence that its specific objectives have been significantly altered by its new connection to culture and media. On the contrary, references to raising Europeans’ awareness of their shared history, heritage, and culture, which are included under the Citizens’ Engagement and Participation strand of the current programme, are no longer explicitly stated in the new regulation.
As for the programme’s practical implementation, there is no clear indication of how the objective of ‘developing synergies between the cultural, media and civic spheres and promoting cross-sectoral collaboration and innovation’ will actually be pursued. Since there is no dedicated cross-sectoral strand, it remains to be seen how artists, journalists, civil society organisations, and human rights defenders will be able - and encouraged - to use the programme’s schemes to create joint, cross-sectoral projects.
Artistic freedom and artists’ working conditions
Safeguarding artistic and media freedom is now explicitly enshrined as part of the programme’s general objectives, a feature that was previously absent. Furthermore, the proposal also states that the implementation of the Culture-specific objective must be carried out with ‘full respect for artistic freedom and the diversity of cultural expressions, while contributing to the improvement of working conditions for artists and cultural and creative professionals’. At first glance, this may read as merely a declarative add-on - these principles having been long promoted and widely accepted, at least in theory, across the sector and among policymakers. Yet these lines take on meaning in light of earlier discussions on introducing fair pay and other social standards as conditions for accessing Creative Europe. The European Parliament had already called for such ‘social conditionality’ in 2023, which was not explicitly discarded by the European Commission, which said it would explore this option in the forthcoming cycle of Union programmes (2028-2034).
While there is indeed scope for AgoraEU to enforce fair working conditions through its funding mechanisms, the current wording remains quite general. The reference to artistic freedom, in particular, is ambiguous: it is unclear whether this is meant as a condition for applicants, an obligation for AgoraEU managing authorities, or simply a guiding value. Who is going to be held responsible for infringing artistic freedom? Importantly, it is not only the programme’s implementation that must fully respect artistic freedom, but also its very design and rationale, which should ensure culture and the arts retain their autonomy and are not instrumentalised to serve an ever-growing range of causes.
Threads to watch
Sectoral approach
AgoraEU is not explicitly set to introduce instruments tailored specifically to individual creative sectors such as music, performing arts, literature, or architecture. Sectoral actions have been central to the identity and visibility of Creative Europe, with initiatives such as Music Moves Europe and Perform Europe establishing strong brands across the pan-European cultural landscape. With the exception of heritage, no sector is explicitly mentioned in the new proposal, and the general commitment to sectoral support is absent from the outline of the Creative Europe-Culture strand. While touring initiatives, prizes, and translation are listed among the measures to enhance the visibility and circulation of European content, it remains anyone’s guess whether the omission of a sectoral approach reflects mere conciseness of the document due to early stages of designing the programme or an intentional discontinuity. It is reasonable to assume, however, that the overall increased budget of the programme, if it survives the negotiations, and the strong, long-standing appetite for sector-specific projects in the cultural field will further intensify advocacy and competition among different sectors and disciplines.
Cooperation projects
Currently, Creative Europe is structured around clearly defined actions, such as cooperation projects, pan-European platforms and networks, as well as flagship initiatives such as the European Capitals of Culture and the European Heritage Label. The AgoraEU proposal does provide reassurance about continued support for platforms and networks, mentioning them in the specific priorities of the Culture strand. Their missions are linked (though not limited) to defined purposes: platforms are expected to ‘support the circulation, distribution, promotion and visibility of diverse European cultural content through various channels’, while networks are tasked with ‘strengthening the capacity and skills in the cultural and creative sectors to drive innovation and competitiveness and to navigate the green and digital transitions’. Support to the European Capitals of Culture and the European Heritage Label is enshrined in the regulation proposal too.
Cooperation projects, however, are not explicitly featured in the text - as they are in the current Creative Europe legal basis. Instead, the first priority of the Culture strand is described more broadly as supporting exchanges and cooperation ‘across various formats’, including residencies and ‘partnerships between organisations of all sizes’. Why the proposal omits a clear reference to the most well-known of all Creative Europe schemes - the Cooperation Projects - remains open to speculation.
Culture and green transition
The link between AgoraEU and the green transition is vague - a departure from the current Creative Europe clearly aligned with the Green Deal (although Creative Europe’s legal basis does not have a distinct green priority either) and a reflection of the broader waning of climate priorities in EU priorities. The climate crisis now appears in a general paragraph on ‘preparedness’, grouped together with health emergencies, security threats, and ‘technological accidents’. Beneficiaries of the programme are merely expected to ‘navigate’ the green transition. After years of debate on the cultural sector’s role in sustainability, its transformative, inspirational, and innovative potential for the green transition still does not seem to have been taken seriously enough to be embedded in what is set to become the EU’s flagship programme for culture.
Culture and EU’s global positioning
Moreover, AgoraEU does not set out an ambitious vision for culture as a driver of the EU’s global role. While the programme stresses support for distributing European creative works both within and beyond the Union, its approach does not mark a major shift from Creative Europe in terms of positioning culture within geopolitics. ‘Soft power’ is mentioned only briefly: culture is expected to help the EU ‘project the image of a dynamic continent on the world stage’ and to operate in synergy with the Global Europe instrument. What is surely missing is a stronger and forward-looking vision of culture as a transformative tool for navigating today’s complex geopolitical realities.
The bigger picture
It should be underlined that AgoraEU is not the only innovation in the proposed MFF. The budget framework introduces structural changes alongside higher overall expenditure. Approximately 52 existing programmes are consolidated into just 16, grouped under four main expenditure headings. The largest allocation - €1 trillion - is directed to Europe’s economic, social and territorial cohesion, agriculture, rural and maritime prosperity and security. The second-largest, €522 billion, is earmarked for Competitiveness, prosperity and security. A central element of the reform is the replacement of the current patchwork of regional and national programmes with 27 National and Regional Partnership (NRP) Plans, one for each member state. Unlike these NRP Plans, AgoraEU will remain under direct Commission management, continuing the centralised approach of today’s Creative Europe and CERV.
The broader budget proposal - with its increase in overall spending, shift to the National and Regional Partnership Plans system, cuts to agricultural support, and dilution of environmental priorities - has already met criticism from some member states (for example, with Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark opposing the budget increases), the European Parliament, farmers, and civil society. Negotiations are expected to unfold over the next 18 months. The MFF regulation requires unanimous approval by all member states in the Council, followed by the consent of the European Parliament. This high bar - combined with divergent national priorities and Parliament’s strong objections - suggests the process will be particularly contentious. Substantial revisions remain possible, including the text of the new regulation proposal, as well as cuts to the proposed AgoraEU budget.
