On February 6th CUMEDIAE joined the event Modernising Cultural and Creative Industries within the EU: Discussing the New European Agenda for Culture, hosted by Public Policy Exchange, where Chairman Ignasi Guardans participated as key speaker.
Together with him Ana Gaio, Senior Lecturer at School of Arts and Social Sciences at City University London (Event Chair), Sophie Dowden, Policy Officer at Culture Action Europe, Grégoire Polad, Director General at Association of Commercial Television in Europe, Laura Houlgatte, CEO at International Union of Cinemas (UNIC) and Inge Ceustermans, Managing Director at The Festival Academy.
The symposium was created to discuss the recent initiatives and policy developments in the field of CCIs in EU, in particular to analyse the New European Agenda for Culture and exchange views, perspectives and good practices on how to tackle the challenges that the sector faces.
Guardans speech focused on the challenges and opportunities of cross-border collaborations for CCIs in Europe. As he said, this topic is a fundamental one, and needs to be a primary policy objective for every decision maker. Reducing market fragmentation gives the possibility to access the broad European market, thus fostering synergies, building collaborations and improving access to funding. Stimulating artists mobility creates new opportunities for artists, enriching culture while maintaining cultural diversity. Moreover, culture and confront among different cultures are one of the strongest weapons against growing nationalism and populism, something that should be addressed at an European level.