– Today a new initial report is presented in the European Parliament  – 

“CCI’s in the EU employ 2.5 times more people than automotive manufacturers and five times more than the chemical industry“ – this is the starting point for the new report jointly prepared by the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, rapporteur Christian Ehler, and the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT), rapporteur Luigi Morgano, and presented today in the CULT committee. The report aims to fill a policy gap in the European agenda and calls “to develop a coherent and long-term industrial policy framework for the cultural and creative sectors.“ It was kick started by an initiative of the Intergroup for Cultural and Creative Sectors in 2015 and several hearings in the European Parliament in the last months.

The draft report ( download here) proposes a new definition of the cultural and creative sectors and a new research agenda:

“identify specific indicators in order to monitor and analyse the cultural, economic and societal impact of its policies and regulatory proposals related to the CCS, and to possibly identify alternative data sources with a view to complementing and improving official statistics.”

The co-rapporteurs conclude their report, “that CCI’s have a key role in the re-industrialisation of Europe, are a driver for growth and are in a strategic position to trigger innovative spillovers in other industrial sectors, such as tourism, retail, and digital technologies. The co-rapporteurs believe that the EU could take a leading role in promoting the important positive impact that the creative sectors have across Europe, to also promote policies that champion Europe’s most unique asset: its culture.”

ECBN supports the attempt for a coherent policy for the cultural and creative industries – as long as policies for industries, SMEs and entrepreneurs form a balanced eco-system with synergies for all stakeholders. The new need for promoting industrial structures in the CCS – induced by digitisation and globalisation – must not affect the old need of promoting SMEs and entrepreneurs. “Starting up” needs to be added by “Scaling up“.

ECBN aims to contribute to the European parliament debate in the autumn of 2016 to work for the best possible policy in the interests of the cultural and creative sectors – continuing its policy initiatives on research, spillover effects and the European Fund for Strategic Investment having started in 2014 already. On June 23 2016 rapporteur Christian Ehler, MeP, was keynote speaker at the European Creative Industries Summit – organised by ECBN – and presented and debated the key ideas of the new report with some 100 stakeholders from the cultural and creative sectors.