The change of political systems in the majority of the countries investigated by EEPAP facilitated travelling and allowed for the establishment of connections abroad. With the emergence of new trends in cultural policy – the development of festivals and the effectiveness of co-productions – as well as the availability of European cultural funds, new platforms for international cooperation appeared. (…)

Among the countries investigated in this report, seven: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia are members of the European Union. The others have different relations with the EU.

Paweł Płoski photo: Sylwia Śmigiel

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia have filed motions for EU membership. Of these, only Croatia and Macedonia have official status as a candidate. The Eastern Partnership programme, produced by the European Union in 2009 within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy, offers trade cooperation, visa facilitation services and the EU Help Funds. The purpose of this program is to prepare candidate countries for accession to the European Union. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine participate in the Partnership. In 2010, the Eastern Partnership Culture Programme was launched to provide institutional strengthening in the cultural sectors of the partner countries. The activities undertaken within the programme are meant to help formulate cultural policies, to reform cultural institutions, and to prepare the way for accessing opportunities provided by EU cultural programmes. The partner countries can count on the EU to provide help in the reform of their cultural policies at the government level and to provide financial support for civil society and cultural institutions. The EU has assigned 12 million euro to the programme.

The status of Kosovo remains highly complex in relation to the EU. A few EU countries have still not recognized its independence – the EU Committee itself recognizes Kosovo to be an administrative district of Serbia under international supervision.

The EU member states benefit from a variety of programmes and EU funds – from the Culture 2007 programme (and the earlier programmes available in the pre-accession period, such as Kaleidoscope, Theorem, PHARE, and Culture 2000).

Bulgarian projects supported by the EU are exceptions – they are limited to the support of festivals and for minority partners in multilateral projects (Culture 2007 programmes). In Bulgaria, theatre and dance institutions seldom use EU programmes because there is no state or ministerial fund (programme) to help Bulgarian institutions participate in EU projects. Recently, however, the Sofia Municipality "Culture" programme started providing funds for Bulgarian partners in EU financed projects.

Similarly, in Romania public institutions do not use EU programmes and funds due to a lack of professional experts, bureaucratic procedures, and the system by which public theatres function. One exception is the "Ion Dacian" National Operette Theatre that is collaborating with the Accademia Teatro alla Scala from Milan on a project called "SCENART - Support for Skills Improvement in the Romanian Performing Arts". This 3.7 million-euro three-year project is financed from the Sector Operational Programme - Human Resources Development. The Romanian independent groups are more active in using the EU programmes (…)

In the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia theatres use the Culture 2007 programme as well as structural improvement funds (infrastructural investment), the Interreg programmes, the Norway grants, the Operational Programme Infrastructure Fund and Environment (...)

In Slovakia, grants from the Culture programme are very popular – each year the number of new applications grows. Increasingly, Slovakian institutions and associations act as leaders for the projects funded by the Culture programme. Both the Czech Prague and the Slovakian Bratislava Cultural Contact Points (that coordinate the grant distribution from the Culture programme) are working in partnership with the Culture Programme in their respective Theatre Institutes.

In recent years, many Hungarian theatres have participated in the Social Renewal Operational Programme (TAMOP) or have received a subsidy for their own performances. In Poland, the Promesa programme of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has existed since 2004 helping to finance national contributions for selected cultural projects co-financed with EU funds (…)

The countries that seek EU membership also make use of the Culture programme. For ten years now Macedonia has been participating in a variety of EU programmes. Two years ago it created its own Cultural Contact Point. Croatia has been active in the programme since 2007. In addition, Croatian organisations use the resources of the European Cultural Foundation. Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, and the other partner countries, do not use EU funds yet. Direct use of the Culture Programme became possible only aft er the establishment of the Eastern Partnership.

Prior to that, the institutions from those countries – formally regarded as third countries – could only take part in a project financed by the EU as a "co-organiser" or an "associated partner", which was complicated and involved the mediation of organisations from EU member states.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently at the stage of signing an agreement on the Instrument for Preaccession Assistance and other pre-accession EU funds. In Moldova such cooperation is "rare and without significant success in the theatre field". Kosovo does not benefit at all.

The author of the Ukrainian report remarks that: "the participation of Ukrainian institutions in EU programmes is rare due to the lack of international fundraising experts and managers educated in foreign languages who could professionally engage in the non-profit branch of Ukrainian performance arts. On the whole, the inert development of theatre management and the lack of any effective government policy in the field of Ukraine’s cultural Euro-integration are the main problems here".

It is only now that a deeper integration of the countries of the Eastern Partnership and the European cultural sphere is starting to take place. The artists from the countries of the Eastern Partnership are already pointing to problems related to the incompatibility of standards for artistic work in different countries. This might also make the cooperation on projects financed by the EU more challenging in the beginning (…)

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