Archive for category: News/Annoucenemnts

‘We should look towards the future, but with a wisdom we gained from the past’, Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission

The year 2014 marks two important anniversaries which are an occasion to reflect on the achievements in European integration until now: 100 years have passed since the beginning of the first World War and 10 years since the biggest round of enlargement of the European Union (EU) with the accession of 10 new countries. Today, the EU perspective is open to Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Iceland, Kosovo*, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.

The European Commission is keen to learn more about what you think:

• What can today’s European Union of 28 Member States learn from its past to help improve its future?
• What does an enlarged European Union mean to you?

If you are between 15 and 25 years old, get creative today and win some great prizes! Share your views on one or both questions in an article (max 700 words) or in up to three blog features/articles (max 700 words altogether).

For the competition rules, please see the key links section.

Submitting your article

You can submit your entry in one of the following ways:

• By email: Send your entry as an attachment (Word Document or an Open Office Writer File) to: [email protected]

• By post: Send your entry to:media consulta International Holding AG

  Attn: Rachel Harding

  Wassergasse 3

  10197 Berlin

  Germany

• On Facebook: You can upload your entry by clicking on the writing competition button located at the top of the EU Enlargement Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/EUenlargement, which will lead you to the competition registration page. Please then follow the instructions provided to upload your entry as either a Word Document or an OpenOffice Writer File.
• Directly at this link.

The deadline for submissions is 11 May 2014 (electronic delivery or registered mail).

No entries will be returned to competition participants. If you send your entry by post, please be sure to keep a copy for yourself.

Cultural and creative organisations wishing to bid for funding in 2014 through Creative Europe, the European Union’s new programme for the cultural and creative sectors, can start to prepare their grant applications from today. They will find the first details of funding opportunities (‘calls for proposals’) here. To help prepare their application, the new Creative Europe Programme Guide contains a wealth of information about the funding process. Nearly €170 million in funding is available under the programme’s first calls for 2014. Individuals cannot apply directly for grants; instead they should contact relevant organisations such as cultural associations, festivals, theatres and film distributors etc. which make the application, or their national Creative Europe desk.

“Over the next seven years, the Creative Europe programme will provide funding for transnational projects which will enable 250 000 artists and cultural professionals to reach new audiences abroad. It will also invest strongly in the European film industry, with support for 2 000 cinemas and hundreds of films. Authors and publishers will benefit from support for translation and we will continue to provide funding for the European Capitals of Culture and many other initiatives,” said Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture Multilingualism and Youth.

Creative Europe, which will have a total budget of €1.46 billion1 over the next seven years – 9% more than current levels – will support artists, cultural professionals and cultural organisations in fields such as the performing arts, fine arts, publishing, film, TV, music, video games, interdisciplinary arts, heritage and video games to operate in other countries and develop the skills that are needed in the digital age. By increasing the visibility of European cultural works in other countries, it will also promote cultural and linguistic diversity.

In addition to Culture and MEDIA sub-programmes, Creative Europe will include a cross-sector strand to support policy cooperation, transversal measures and a new financial guarantee facility, which will enable small and medium sized enterprises in the cultural and creative sectors to access up to €750 million in bank loans. The facility will be operational from 2016.

Background

It is estimated that Creative Europe programme will enable:

1. 250 000 artists and cultural professionals and their work to receive funding to reach new audiences beyond their home countries;
2. More than 800 European films to receive distribution support and therefore be seen by audiences throughout Europe and the world;
3. At least 2 000 European cinemas to benefit from the support to European cinema network enabling them to ensure that at least 50% of the films they screen are European;
4. More than 4 500 books and other literary works to receive support for translation, allowing readers to enjoy them in their mother tongue;
5. Thousands of cultural and audiovisual organisations and professionals to benefit from training to gain new skills and to strengthen their capacity to work internationally.

The European Capitals of Culture, the European Heritage Label, the European Heritage Days as well as 5 prizes in the field of culture and audiovisual are also supported through Creative Europe.

The new programme, which replaces the MEDIA, MEDIA Mundus and Culture programmes, will allocate 56% of its budget to the support of the cinema and audiovisual sector and 31% for culture.

The European cultural and creative sectors represent up to 4.5% of European GDP and account for some 3.8% of the EU workforce (8.5 million people).

For more information

Creative Europe video

Creative Europe Programme Guide

European Commission

Androulla Vassiliou’s website

Follow Androulla Vassiliou on Twitter @VassiliouEU

Contacts : Dennis Abbott (+32 2 295 92 58); Twitter: @DennisAbbott Dina Avraam (+32 2 295 96 67)

1 : €1.46 billion taking account of estimated inflation. This is the equivalent of €1.3 billion in ‘fixed’ 2011 prices.

This objective calls for projects to create an environment in Europe that encourages more web entrepreneurs to start a business in Europe and scale it up. The focus of this topic is on entrepreneurs who use web and mobile technologies as main components in their innovation with a positive impact across the continuum of actors for entrepreneurship.

The forthcoming €10M funding will be allocated to projects to accelerate web entrepreneurship in Europe by using new cross-border services co-developed by several local web entrepreneurship ecosystems and hubs working together. Coordination activities to strength the environment for web entrepreneurship in Europe and that exploit synergies across stakeholder communities will also be funded.

The expected impact is to support the emergence of dynamic European ecosystems for web entrepreneurs that also contribute to shaping future web entrepreneurship specific policies, in particular for the implementation of Startup Europe EU initiative

Deadline for submission: 23/04/2014.

For full details click here

One of the core ideas of the event is to encourage young participants to actively participate in the EYE programme and its delivery as much as possible. There are three ways to actively participate in the EYE 2014:

1. Register for, take part and engage in political debates, workshops and other activities (in English, French and German) during the three days of the EYE. Ideas and conclusions will form a final report for presentation to the newly elected European Parliament Members, as well as other European decision-makers with a view to serving as a source of inspiration.

Registration for the EYE 2014 starts on 8 October 2013 at 12:00

2. Apply to stage an artistic performance – be it music, dance, acrobatics, sketches or anything else you might want to propose. A selection of the applicants will be able to perform during the Street Festival which will take place on various stages in the city of Strasbourg on Friday evening. Details will be published on this website in October.

3. Apply to present a special initiative that is related to the five main topics. A limited number of initiatives can be presented at the EYE in an interactive way (e.g. by organising an interactive stand outside, offering a practical workshop). Details will be published on this website in October.

Who can register?

Young Europeans from Member States, candidate states and neighbourhood countries aged between 16 and 30 years.

Due to the specific nature of the activities, only group reservations can be accepted. The minimum group size is 10. Every group needs to have a group leader, who will take responsibility for the group’s registration process, logistics, programme and accommodation. To qualify as a group leader, you must be at least 18 years old and an EU national.

How?

Interested groups of young people can register either for the whole three-day event or for individual days. On Friday, besides the regular programme, there will be additional activities targeted at school groups.

There will be two phases of registration. In the first phase, group leaders will be able to apply to participate in the event through an online registration system. In the second phase individual participants in a group will be signed up for programme activities.

Group registration will open on 8 October 2013 at 12:00 through this website.

In the new year group leaders will be informed of when and how to register their individual participants for programme activities. Details will also be posted on this website.

There is no fee for attending the EYE 2014 event. However, participants will need to cover their own transport, accommodation and meals.

• Application Form