Annual Policy Conversation 2026 Puts Culture at the Centre of Europe’s Future

At this year’s Cultural Deal for Europe annual policy conversation “When Culture Wins, Europe Wins” at Bozar in Brussels, high-level EU policy-makers and civil society actors met to discuss how to secure a strong position of culture in the EU, its next multi-annual budget (2028-2024), and the proposed AgoraEU programme bringing culture, media, values and rights under one umbrella. Together, they identified ways for culture to move up the EU agenda and address with force and impact key European challenges.

In her introductory words, Isabelle Schwarz, Head of Public Policy at the European Cultural Foundation (ECF), captured this directly. “Culture is not a luxury. It is Europe’s defence line and foundation. Europe must choose: will culture remain on the margins or become central to core EU political decisions? The far right understands the power of culture and uses it for divisive purposes”.

The Cultural Compass for Europe, the European Commission’s new strategy for culture, is commendable, but it only points the way. We need investment, commitment, and political will to make it actionable. This is a moral and political imperative.

The Cultural Deal for Europe demands are four-fold: position culture centrally in the next EU budget; embed culture transversally across EU policies; treat culture as a strategic asset; dedicate 2% of the next EU budget to culture. The aim is to boost Europe through culture by investing in participation, belonging and cooperation which nourishes a European sentiment and meaningfully shapes our everyday life.

These themes reflect ECF’s work which connects cultural practice on the ground with European-level decisions. We want to help ensure that the spaces where democratic life is lived, from libraries to media platforms to cross-border cultural initiatives, are recognised and supported as part of Europe’s shared infrastructure.

The Cultural Deal for Europe is an advocacy initiative launched by the European Cultural Foundation, Culture Action Europe and Europa Nostra in November 2020 as a response to the devastating effects of Covid-19 on Europe’s cultural and creative sectors. Taking place for the sixth time, the Cultural Deal for Europe annual policy conversation was organised with our partners in collaboration with Bozar, Brussels.

A recent piece – for EU Observer, by ECF Director, Andre Wilkens – on how Europe can “win the culture war” makes a similar point from another angle: security is not only about defence and economics, but about belonging, identity and the spaces where people experience Europe in daily life. The article argues that culture is a strategic resource, shaping trust, resilience and democratic legitimacy, and calls for culture to be treated as core infrastructure in European policy and funding. This echoes the message of the annual policy conversation 2026: When Culture Wins, Europe Wins.