Zovko: “The EU has to help the cultural and creative sector in this crisis”

Split/Brussels, 13 April 2020

The corona outbreak has hit the European citizens hard and although we cannot estimate how long our lives will be impacted by this crisis, we can already see that the economic and social damage is grave and costs are skyrocketing. This is especially the case for the cultural and creative sector, an important industry in Croatia. Museums and cinemas are closed, concert and public events are cancelled. As member of the European Parliament’s Committee for culture, education, sports and youth, Zeljana Zovko wrote a letter to Commissioner Gabriel, competent for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth to ask for increased European support.

Zovko welcomes the adopted measures of the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative and believes they will bring relief to many businesses to a certain extent. Also the newly adopted “Creative Europe at Home” initiative allows citizens to follow their favorite artists and make art easily accessible.  But according to Zovko, additional funding is needed to help SMEs, microbusinesses and self-employed in the cultural and creative sector, whose life is depending on their daily income.

To properly cover the creative and cultural sector, Zovko believes that the existing economic recovery package is unfortunately not wide enough. In order to complement the considerable efforts at national level, the European Union should consider increasing the budget of existing financial instruments. Zovko suggests to combine the assistance of programs such as Creative Europe with the European Fund for Strategic Investments and the European Investment Fund.

“The members of the European Parliament, together with the Commissioner Gabriel have always supported the cultural and creative sector. With additional European assistance, we will overcome this crisis” Zovko stated.

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