The Creative Europe programme 2021-2027 has a budget of € 2.44 billion, compared to €1.47 billion of the previous programme (2014-2020). Creative Europe invests in actions that reinforce cultural diversity and respond to the needs and challenges of the cultural and creative sectors.
The main objectives of the programme are
  • to safeguard, develop and promote European cultural and linguistic diversity and heritage
  • increase the competitiveness and economic potential of the cultural and creative sectors, in particular the audiovisual sector.
The novelties of the programme will contribute to the recovery of these sectors, reinforcing their efforts to become more inclusive, more digital and environmentally more sustainable.
The Creative Europe programme is divided in 3 strands:
The Culture strand of the Creative Europe programme supports a wide range of cultural and creative sectors including among others:
architecture
cultural heritage
design
literature and publishing
music
performing arts.
The Culture strand encourages cooperation and exchanges among cultural organisations and artists within Europe and beyond. Creative Europe aims to
  • foster artistic creation and innovation
  • support the promotion and the distribution of European content across Europe and beyond
  • help artists find creation and performance opportunities across borders,
  • stimulate the digital and environmental transition of the European Culture and Creative Sectors.
The MEDIA strand of the Creative Europe programme supports the European film and audiovisual industries to develop, distribute and promote European works, taking into account today’s digital environment. In addition it
  • encourages cooperation across the value chain of the audiovisual industry and at EU level in order to scale up enterprises and European content globally
  • nurtures talents – wherever they come from
  • engages with audiences of all ages, specially the younger generations
A new structure for a new programme
To ensure more flexibility in the actions supported and to encourage cooperation among the different parts of the audiovisual value-chain, the priorities of the 2021-2027 Creative Europe programme are structured around 4 clusters.
The CROSS-SECTORAL strand aims at reinforcing collaboration between different cultural and creative sectors, in order to help them address the common challenges they face and find innovative new solutions. This is achieved for instance through policy cooperation, the services provided by the Creative Europe desks, and the Creative Innovation Lab.
New support to the news media sector
For the first time, Creative Europe offers funding to the news media sector in order to promote media literacy, pluralism and media freedom, as well as activities to help the sector adjust to the structural and technological changes it faces.
In particular, in 2021, Creative Europe launched a call for proposals on journalism partnerships. The action aims to:
  • promote sector-wide, cross-border collaboration among news media professionals in Europe
  • stimulate sharing of best practices for collaborative business transformation
  • encourage journalistic collaboration by developing standards, new business models, training programmes, funding schemes and other activities that aim to uphold quality journalism.
The support targets the wider European news media sector, including small media.
Supporting innovative digital solutions for the cultural and creative sectors
Through the Creative Innovation Lab action, Creative Europe wants to encourage innovative approaches to content creation, access, distribution, and promotion across the cultural and creative sectors, as well as with other sectors. Such approaches shall take the digital transition into account and cover both market and non-market dimensions.
The Creative Innovation Lab aims to
  • incentivise players from different cultural and creative sectors to design and test innovative digital solutions with long-term positive impact
  • ease creation of innovative, close-to-market tools, models and methods for the audiovisual sector and at least another creative or cultural sector.
The first call for Innovation Labs under the new Creative Europe programme has been published.
Creative Europe Desks
Creative Europe Desks are designed to:
  • provide information about and promote the Creative Europe programme in their country
  • assist the cultural and creative sectors in relation to the programme and provide basic information on other support opportunities
  • stimulate cross-border cooperation within the cultural and creative sectors
  • provide assistance regarding the cultural and creative sectors in participating countries
  • support the Commission in ensuring proper communication and dissemination of the results and impacts of the programme
  • ensure the communication and dissemination of information concerning funding awarded to and results in a participating country.