Parliamentary question

Written question to the European Commission

It seems that only 14 Member States have included culture in their national recovery and resilience plans. Furthermore, the goal to earmark at least 2 % of the Recovery and Resilience Facility budget for culture, which the European Parliament demanded in its resolution of 17 September 2020 on the cultural recovery of Europe, and which was supported by the cultural and creative sectors, has apparently only been achieved at EU level on average.

1. What measures is the Commission planning to introduce in order to stop the heterogeneity of public investments in culture leading to recovery at different speeds across the EU, causing increased disparities within the EU’s cultural ecosystem and threatening its cultural diversity?

2. Will the Commission provide more detailed numbers on the 2 % of the budget that was apparently earmarked for culture, in particular specifying which investments directly benefit the creation of cultural works as opposed to indirect investments, such as investments in tourism or in improving the energy efficiency of cultural buildings?

Answer given by Commissioner Gentiloni on behalf of the European Commission

The Commission refers to its answers to Parliamentary Questions 2915/2021, 1336/2021 and 4579/2021. While the regulation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) does not contain a 2% allocation target for culture, Member States can use the RRF funds to support the cultural and creative sectors.

While the ultimate decision on which reforms and investments to include in the national recovery and resilience plans (RRPs) lies with the Member States, the Commission’s encouragements to include measures directly and indirectly supporting culture and creative sectors in their RRPs were followed in most cases.

Cultural and creative sectors and industries (CCSIs) will benefit to a large extent from the RRF directly, with targeted measures included in 16 national RRPs out of the 22 already endorsed.

They will also benefit from horizontal measures that will be open to CCSI professionals and companies and which will increase demand for their services (e.g. support for the digitalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises or digital skills trainings of workers).

The horizontal measures supporting green and digital transition will help achieve the modernisation and future resilience of the CCSIs.

Various funding streams have been mobilised for the benefit of the sectors covering the period 2021-2027, such as Creative Europe, Horizon Europe, and REACT-EU. Information on the EU funding opportunities for the cultural and creative sectors are available through the CulturEU tool.

The RRF is a performance-based instrument for which the disbursement of funds depends on the achievement of agreed milestones and targets, not on the actual cost of specific measures.

The Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard provides aggregated data on the measures set out by Member States per pillar and policy area.