During the closing event of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), which took place in Strasbourg on the 9th of May 2022, representatives of the civil society, activists, artists, and cultural workers reminded decision-makers of the key role of culture and art in shaping a democratic, open, diverse and inclusive future. In the past year, as on Europe Day, the participants of the Slovenian AMPLIFY initiative emphasized the importance and the challenges of international cultural cooperation, and proposed the following solutions: (1) support for greater professionalization in culture; (2) more support for involving audiences in culture at the local level; (3) a system of national/regional co-financing for international cultural cooperation.
The celebration of Europe Day 2022 under the auspices of Culture Action Europe (CAE), BOZAR, the European Cultural Foundation, and De Balie brought together many European (including Slovenian) communities that participated in the one-year AMPLIFY project, as well as young artists from all continents, and cultural workers and activists from Ukraine. Participants had the opportunity to exchange views with policy-makers from the three main EU institutions. The guests that participated in the debates were Laurence Farreng (Renew Europe/FR, Coordinator of the Working Group on Education, Youth, Culture and Sport in the European Parliament), Niklas Nienaß (MEP Greens/EFA, DE), Alexis Georgoulis (MEP Left, GR), Guillemette Madinier (Deputy Cultural Adviser at the Permanent Mission of France to the EU on behalf of the French Presidency of the Council of the EU), and Angelos Agalianos (CoFoE DG EAC Officer).
Motovila concluded the AMPLIFY initiative and made its contribution to the Conference on the Future of Europe at the EU House, where we also joined the Europe Day*22 live programme, in which Sara Božanić from the Institute for Transmedia Design presented the challenges of the cultural sector on behalf of the Slovenian AMPLIFY community. We thank the domestic representatives of the sector for their response to the AMPLIFY initiative, and look forward to our continued work with representatives of cultural organizations, especially in the light of the decentralization of funding opportunities and EU incentives for more international cultural cooperation.