The latest edition of the Culture of Solidarity Fund supports European transnational initiatives that mobilise voters for the 2024 European Parliament elections. This edition has been developed in collaboration with Evens Foundation, Allianz Foundation & partners. 

On February 14 The European Pavilion 2024 was unveiled. The jury deciding on the 500,000 euros commissioning grant unanimously agreed on awarding the proposal Liquid Becomings. This proposal was put forward by the consortium led by the independent artists' collective espaço agora now, and comprising the organisations FLOW, MS-Fusion, Teatro Meia Volta and United Artist Labour. 

Display Europe, the new pan-European media platform has launched in Brussels. It is anchored in public values and inclusivity.

We invite individual journalists and small media organisations to apply for a micro-grant.

Press release: Meet the five finalists selected for The European Pavilion 2024.

Rien van Gendt invites philanthropy to reflect, challenge, rethink and reorganise action to make sense and to make a difference.

The Europe Challenge is an annual programme that brings together teams from libraries and communities across Europe to address social isolation, inequality, disinformation, climate crises and other local challenges by developing, sharing and implementing creative solutions with support from the European Cultural Foundation and its partners. This edition runs from January to September 2024.

We sat down for a short conversation with Sepake Angiama, chair of the open call for The European Pavilion curatorial proposals jury. Her organisation, iniva, participated in The European Pavilion in 2021-2022 with the DRIFT Pavilion project.

We are delighted to present the members and chair of the jury for the first Commissioning grant to host and curate the European Pavilion 2024. The role of the jury is to select the recipient of the Commissioning grant from a shortlist of up to ten candidates drawn up by the European Cultural Foundation team. The jury is made up of seven members, each with voting rights, and a non-voting chair. They represent a wide range of cultural backgrounds, expertise and practices.

Our Director André Wilkens and our Head of Public Policy Isabelle Schwarz call upon the EU and member states to regain confidence in liberalism and in their own citizens.

New traineeship program focused on promoting and diversifying philanthropy with a European purpose, in close collaboration with Allianz Foundation.

André Wilkens is back on Eurozine's 'Gagarin' podcast: Europe has failed to recognize the threats right in front of us. Now, we must adapt rapidly and mitigate the losses. But inevitable change brings with it incredible opportunities too.

As you flip through the pages of our annaul magazine, you will be greeted with remarkable content that celebrates the beauty, resilience, creativity, and unity of our European cultural community.

For Europe Day '23 we provided an agenda with Europe Day events across the continent and near you and featured an online Europe Day festival on 9 May. We featured real-time coverage of various Europe Day events and view original content as well as an exclusive selection of documentary films.Watch an in-depth highlight of the day - including the recordings of the Launch of the European Sentiment Compass, Pop the Vote and Re:framing Migrants in European Media.

Can a newsroom reach its full journalistic potential without racialised or with migrant background professionals? Can good journalism be done without an anti-racist and migrant perspective while reporting? The people and initiatives featured in SHIFT have set themselves apart through their independent reporting on asylum, immigration and the media, providing invaluable insights and models of good practice.The shift is happening – be a part of it!

'Re:framing Migrants in European Media' is a project co-funded by the European Union that we run together with five partners. The project changes current media narratives by assuring appropriate media representation of migrant and refugee communities across Europe, empowering self-representation. In a new episode of the Re:framing migrants podcast, they dive into getting to know the hosts of the podcast, Mohammed S Bah and Barly Tsibanda. The project also showcases the Collaborative Incubator by Beyond the Now, which brings together socially engaged artists and investigative journalists alongside digital activists to facilitate experimentation and risk-taking (mixing methodologies and approaches to storytelling), and for new collaborative alliances to be formed.

To celebrate #EuropeDay23 we invited guests to our party to contribute their favourite EuropeDay song. The spotify playlist is the compilation of your contributions, for #Europeisyours.

Into Europe is a channel offering a cautiously optimistic outlook on Europe's future while overcoming European biases and differences. In their #EuropeDay explainer they ask: What is the European Union doing to increase a European feeling, and what does that mean for the future of Europe?

In their latest episode The Europeans Podcast interview Bojana Grujic of the Novi Sad City Library in Serbia and Myrto Tsilimpounidi from the Feminist Library at the Feminist Autonomous Centre in Athens, both participating in The Europe Challenge that offered them support, resources and funding.

A joint statement on supporting cultural relief work after the Türkiye & Syria earthquakes by Cultural Emergency Response (CER), Prince Claus Fund, DutchCulture, European Cultural Foundation. 

Ettijahat - Independent Culture and Action For Hope العمل للأمل announces the launch of the Ahliyeh (civil) initiative, which will provide an emergency response to those affected by the earthquake that hit northern Syria and southern Turkey in February.This initiative will last for six months in cooperation with a number of international and local civil society organisations, civil groups working in different fields, and institutions in the arts and culture sector. Ahliyeh (civil) initiative is supported by our Culture of Solidarity Fund. 

Following the publication of the book ‘Philanthropy Back to the Drawing Board' by former ECF president of the board Rien van Gendt, the author and our director André Wilkens sat down for an exchange of thoughts on the challenges and outlooks for philanthropy, the need for self-reflection and, ultimately, the relation between philanthropy and democracy.

The third edition of the Cultural Deal for Europe Annual Policy Conversation, entitled Culture is the new energy for Europe took place on 28 February 2023 in Brussels. The three co-organisers - Culture Action Europe, Europa Nostra and European Cultural Foundation - welcomed 135 participants on-site and more than 300 attendees online, in dialogue with three Members of the European Parliament and a keynote by the Vice-President of the European Commission Margaritis Schinas. Ukraine was front and centre at the conversation, with the dire conditions of artists and cultural workers, the difficult situation for the cultural sector and the destruction and damage to heritage sites all in the spotlight.

We stand in solidarity with the victims of the devastating earthquake in South East Turkey and Northern Syria. Many of the communities who we work and connect with in our Vaha and Tandem programmes as well as Re:framing Migrants in the Media are heavily affected.

Our director André Wilkens shares in his New Year's message today's crises can, and must, create a New Energy for Europe!

The European Cultural Foundation is looking for a Grants Coordinator

The European Cultural Foundation, together with the German-Turkish Youth Bridge, the Goethe-Institut, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and Stiftung Mercator, are shocked and sharply criticise the brutal verdict against Osman Kavala announced on 25 April by a Turkish court. The Turkish promoter of art, culture and open society has been in custody since 2017 under changing, unfounded accusations and was yesterday sentenced to life imprisonment under especially hard conditions in defiance to a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

ECF Supervisory Board is delighted to announce that it has chosen Gerry Salole as its next Chair. He will succeed Rien van Gendt who is currently holding the Chairmanship at interim.

It is with great regret that we need to inform you that a COVID-19 positive case was tested today within the organizing event team. This means we have to postpone our today’s #CulturalDealEU Annual Policy Conversation as neither the organizing team nor the technical could be taking part. For the safety of everyone involved, we see no other option than to postpone the event to a later date in December which will be communicated to you ASAP. 

In July 2020, we kicked start our initiative for a European Pavilion with brainstorm meeting that brought together a group of curators, artists, and foundation representatives. The meeting was part of an exploratory process in which we gathered different perspectives and interests, and reflected on whether the creation of a European Pavilion in a completely ‘new’ way is a significant symbol of a positive European sentiment and solidarity.

We publish various newsletters to keep you updated on all things European Cultural Foundation, and beyond.

What a strange year it has been in Europe. On the one hand, we have been closer together than ever before. From Finland to France, Poland to Germany: in one fell swoop, citizens of countries across the continent experienced how drastically a pandemic can change day-to-day life. Travel restrictions and border controls have divided us to a degree we haven’t experienced in a very long time. Even during the summer holidays, it wasn’t easy or sometimes even possible to meet up to talk about life in the midst of the global pandemic. When, if not now, should Europe come together for a conversation?

European Cultural Foundation, Fondazione CRC and Fondazione CRT invited organisations from the Piedmont (Cuneo province in particular) and the Aosta Valley to apply for the third round of the European Culture of Solidarity Fund. Set up at the beginning of the pandemic crisis, the fund continues to support imaginative cultural initiatives that reinforce European solidarity and the idea of Europe as a shared public space.This round is now closed. We thank you for your applications.

The Calvert Journal invites you to their Calvert Journal Film Festival; 7 days of New East cinema online, a digital film festival showcasing the diverse cinematic talent of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The festival will feature 7 films, screened online for free during the week from 12 to 18 October; each day a different film will be available for 24h.

This year’s Lampa Conservation Festival took place in September. In the session our director, André Wilkens, took part in, technological advancement, changes in social fabric, rising inequality, climate change, the global pandemic, geopolitical struggles were the topics to be discussed. What kind of future awaits us, and how to prepare for it?

Together with IDFA we present two documentaries by Polish director Miroslav Dembinski shedding light on the current situation in Belarus. The two films are free to watch for a week. Start date: September 17 2020.

The third edition of Forum on European Culture took place September 17 - 20.According to the organisation “Now more than ever, we need the power of artists and thinkers to imagine a better future for Europe.” Want to find out what they imagined? Youtube!

Over 250 European cultural leaders and arts organisations have signed an open letter - drafted by D6 Culture in Transit - urging the UK’s Secretary of State, Rt Hon Oliver Dowden to reverse the decision to take the UK out of Creative Europe, the EU’s funding programme for the cultural and creative sectors. #Together4CreativeEurope

Today the EU Council meets as “the EU has called the Belarusian political leadership to participate in a genuine and inclusive dialogue with broader society to avoid further violence. The EU supports the Belarusian population in their desire for democratic change.” You can follow the video conference via this link.We hope the outcomes will support the changes in Belarusian society now that the society experienced “a revolution in its mentality, a complete reboot of its thinking process,” as visual artist and writer Artur Klinaŭ had hoped for in his 2015 contribution to our Another Europe book.

Today is a sad day. Our friend and colleague Osman Kavala is in unlawful detention for 1000 days today.

VAHA [meaning OASIS in Turkish] will connect and enable up to 50 independent arts and culture spaces and organisations for public programming to shape 16 local hubs interconnected within an international solidarity network. Open call to participation closed September 14.

All across Europe, citizens (including those who are not formally recognised as such) are creating new online and offline spaces where working together and generating solidarity is what matters. Fifty cultural activists and change-makers will explore ways to collaborate on initiatives to strengthen European Public Space. Originally scheduled as a real-time meeting in Rijeka in April, the program took an online form. In the week from 22 to 28 June, several live events will take place online.

Our Head of Programmes Philipp Dietachmair is one of the seven voices invited by Wroclaw Cultural Guide to answer questions about current situations, operations, and plans going forward.

70 years ago Schuman presented his plan to reconcile and rebuild postwar Europe. Are there any lessons to learn for our post-COVID reconstruction, ECF director André Wilkens asks himself.

In a blog post to the European Foundation Center (EFC), our director André Wilkens touches upon Europe's (dis)united response to COVID 19 and the need for a European moment of solidarity. He also introduces our new Culture of Solidarity Fund, that will support initiatives that help build this culture of solidarity we need to grow out of this crisis.

The Coronavirus has affected much of the world and will do so for some time to come. Europe is under increasing pressure as we speak. We have cancelled all our travelling and events for the upcoming six weeks, and our staff works from home.

Following the outbreak of the Coronavirus, we are monitoring the developments and assess the effect on our work on a daily basis. A growing number of international exchange events have been cancelled due to the outbreak.

A small report on two events we co-organised with the ACES of the University of Amsterdam: analysing the spaces of the European far-right, and co-creating a speculative fiction scenario for Europe.