European Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou announced yesterday details of the ‘Creative Europe’ initiative. The initiative is a new plan by the European Commission to boost the cultural and creative sectors in Europe.
The ‘Creative Europe’ programme intends to support the cultural and creative sectors with a proposed budget of €1.8 billion for the period 2014-2020. It is hoped the new programme will allocate more than €900 million in support of the cinema and audiovisual sector. The Commission is also proposing to allocate more than €210 million for a new financial guarantee facility.
The proposed €1.8 billion budget for Creative Europe represents a 37% increase on current spending level. The current programme had a budget of €775 million. In the current media programme Ireland has received almost €8 million in direct funding which has gone on to provide support for such Films as ‘The Guard’ and ‘The Runway’ and TV programmes such as ‘An t-Éireannach Fáin’ and ‘Garth and Bev’.
To see the review of the impact of the current media programme in Ireland can be downloaded here.