Parliamentary question

Written question to the European Commission

The lack of data on the creative and cultural sectors (CCS) has been highlighted by representatives of international organisations, Member States and civil society organisations as one of the main obstacles to immediately supporting the CCS, which have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This lack of data was already an issue prior to the pandemic. Nevertheless, the consequences of the problem are getting worse and will continue to get worse in the future. After all, accurate, adequate, comparable, monitored and updated information with a special focus on all the different sectors involved in the CCS from an official EU common point of reference is key to a) ensuring the best possible decision-making and policy design; b) boosting research and innovation; and c) forging a better future for the CCS and thus for EU society as a whole.

1. What measures does the Commission intend to take to data map the impact of COVID-19 on the CCS?

2. Will there be any measures for mapping the CCS with monitored and updated data in the long term, focusing also on the individual sectors involved?

3. Will the Commission begin procedures for the establishment of a CCS-focused department in Eurostat, as no such department exists at the moment?

Answer given by Commissioner Gabriel on behalf of the European Commission

The Commission has been collecting statistics related to the cultural and creative sectors for many years. Eurostat leads this work. These harmonised statistics cover many different social and economic domains — employment, business, international trade, prices, government expenditure and cultural participation.

Data are publicly available in Eurobase and several thematic articles on culture are published in the series ‘Statistics Explained’.

In addition, Eurostat published ‘Culture statistics’ in 2019 and the methodological manual ‘Guide to Eurostat culture statistics’ in 2018.

Data on cultural sectors are included in different Eurostat data collections, but the coverage of cultural field depends on the data sources. The situation will gradually improve.

There is currently no agreed statistical definition for ‘Cultural and creative sectors’, which is necessary to collect harmonised data.

The Commission expects an important contribution to such a statistical framework from the Pilot Project ‘Measuring Cultural and Creative Sectors’. The final results of the pilot project will be available by December 2022.

As for measuring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, Eurostat and the National Statistical Institutes of the Member States have launched a number of initiatives in this regard. Cultural employment will be estimated on the basis of the EU Labour Force Survey quarterly data.