Over 500 organisations representing Europe’s cultural and creative sectors, independent media and journalism, civil society and democracy actors have signed an urgent joint letter addressed to EU leadership. The letter calls for a substantial increase in funding for the AgoraEU programme in the next long-term EU budget (2028-2034), envisaged as a dedicated funding instrument for culture, independent media and journalism, audiovisual media, and civil society organisations. Despite its strategic importance, the programme currently represents only approximately 0.43% of the total EU budget — a level the coalition considers insufficient to match the scale of the challenges facing these sectors.
Europe faces mounting structural pressures, and an increased budget for the programme is essential. Geopolitical instability, increasing inequalities and widespread precarity, coordinated attacks against civil society and fundamental rights, declining trust in democratic institutions and pressures on competitiveness all reinforce the need for robust, reliable funding for culture, independent media and journalism, audiovisual media, and civil society organisations. At a time when major international funders are retreating, and authoritarian regimes are expanding investment in foreign information manipulation and interference, structural EU support through the programme becomes more important than ever.
Evidence from the sectors across the funding programme illustrates how available resources are currently insufficient to match the needs and challenges across its three pillars:
- Culture: Dedicated funding for culture remains structurally oversubscribed, including through the Creative Europe – Culture strand. The most recent European Cooperation Projects call funded only 122 of 1,663 proposals. (A 7% success rate). Greater support is needed to protect culture as a public good, ensure better working conditions and remuneration in the cultural ecosystem, and to defend cultural autonomy and rights.
- Media: The European Media Industry Outlook 2025 reports a decline of approximately 7 billion EUR annually in journalism revenues between 2019 and 2023, highlighting a growing investment gap in digital infrastructure and innovation compared to global platforms. Independent media and journalism must be recognised as critical infrastructure and supported accordingly.
- Civil Society: According to the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (2024), 85% of civil society organisations working on fundamental rights fear that funding shortages threaten their work. The Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) has delivered impact in safeguarding rights, combatting gender-based violence and all forms of discrimination, yet its calls remain heavily oversubscribed.
The organisations strongly support the call of the European Parliament to substantially increase the budget allocation of the AgoraEU programme. Allocating the revenues collected from fines under EU digital governance to the programme is also proposed as an additional funding source. At a time when Europe’s cultural ecosystems, information space and civic participation are under sustained pressure, reinforced funding for the AgoraEU programme is more important than ever to support EU social and democratic infrastructure.
The Future of Europe Coalition (Center for Sustainable Media, Civil Society Europe, Culture Action Europe, European Civic Forum, European Federation of Journalists, Irish Council for Civil Liberties)
Source: EFJ
