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 invite 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

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.

Writer, cultural producer and political activist Ahdaf Soueif is one of the two laureates of the 2019 ECF Princess Margriet Award for Culture, together with City of Women. While representing distinct cultural approaches, both laureates offer a hopeful vision of democracy by redefining our understanding of culture and its capacity to improve a common European social reality. Prior to welcoming our laureates in Amsterdam on 2 October, we met Ahdaf Soueif at her home in Cairo in May 2019 to discuss her work.