 in this session, I promise you, for the arts. As we all, I think, all of you know, we are not living the easiest part of the farms for the arts and culture at this moment. We saw that budget for culture, support for culture, has suffered under a neoliberalist agenda for the last decades. We saw that more and more countries in Europe, the nationalist agenda, is more and more influence in the discrimination of the good jobs for culture. And we still have many countries in Europe where there's hardly any local policy development yet. This session, we want to start with the European level and then go top down national level, local level, knowing that if you want to advocate for the arts on European level, you also need your advocacy strategies on national and on local level. In the end, it are these people that are making the decisions on the European level. Are those people that are sent there from your own country? I hope that we, in the end of this session, all have an impression of what would or could be our next step to get a better say in how total agendas in our countries could be influenced by ourselves. Have a better say, have a better, have some tools to have, say, in the framing of the agenda. So in the end, I hope we can make it very practical and go to the level of some tips, some tricks, et cetera. We are very happy to have here Julie Ward and Yuki for labor in the European Parliament. So Yuki, the European Parliament, member of European Parliament. She's willing to give us advices, also share some of the reasons, developments, at least in the labor part of the Parliament. But Yuki has given us more insights in the overall feelings at this moment about total agendas. But first of all, I want to give the word to our co-moderator, Hannah Luka, from the Phoenix in Valencia, but also a very active member of Zendiaq. And Zendiaq started your initiators of, no? Yeah. Well, thank you, Mark, and just explain how this paper that you all found in the chair came to came alive. Yes, thank you, and hello. Yeah, I just want to give a few contextual elements about the paper you have here. It is appealed by the European Alliance for Culture. So when we started, I would tell you a little bit more about the week, I would say two years ago, something about the way we could advocate for the arts on the level of the European institutions. We were facing some very concrete realities as artistic and cultural operators. We had the feeling that we were facing the reality that the arts and culture were going out of the radar of the European institutions more and more. That's the feeling we had. There were some operational programs of the EU that stopped supporting the culture funds like the internet programs, which are one of the programs of the European Regional Development Fund, ERDF, which is a fund that, as a matter of fact, is one of the most important funds for operators or cultural actors in border regions. It was for us, for example, we are at the border to Belgium. It was much more important than the cultural program or Creative Europe program today. And so we were facing this reality. We have also had questions about the way the specific culture program was evolving, was cultural program, now Creative Europe program, which also leads to some questions because the arts and culture disappeared behind this world creative Europe. This is also meaningful in a way. So we started asking ourselves, so we, for me, it was in the frame of Sandiak, which is a professional organization in France, we started to try to understand why this was happening and how it came to this. And we had to face the fact that it was a logical consequence of the liberal priorities defined by the European Union in Lisbon in 2010 by the so-called 2020 or 2020 strategy for Europe that gave the European institutions the European Union political goals, binding priorities for all European policies for the period going from 2010 to 2020. And culture, the arts and culture was missing. It was not one of the European priorities. So various organizations, we started talking with ITM, with also with Pearl, and Anita DeVar is the director of Pearl. Is here, Pearl is a big European network of European employers in the field of performing arts. Anita will say more. We started talking about all that. And it was really felt that there were a lot of different people who started thinking that we should go back to a stronger political advocacy on the level of European institutions. So I will make it short, but at the end of this process of discussion, we have the idea that there would be two priorities are the consequences of what I said before. So trying to influence the operational programs of the 2010 to 2020 period by answering to the midterm evaluation of this program, there is a midterm evaluation process. And then maybe for the future, which is also very important, is the way we could influence the definition of the strategy for the European Union for the next period going from 2020 to 2030, which is starting now, in fact, which has already started. So that the arts and culture become part, again, of the European Union's priorities and as a consequence of the operational programs that will be defined in the future. And of course, what we feel, and that's why it's important that we talk about that today, if we want to reach this goal, so this is a text that is a result of this two-year process of discussion, and it's a short text, but I can tell you it's the result of a long process of discussion among a lot of people. And today, this text has been signed. I don't know exactly how many European networks, 25 European networks. At this point, it's open only to the European network, but there will be further steps have signed this text. OK. So we feel that if we want to reach this goal, we need you, we need all of us in fact, because we need to go and talk with the people who will make, who will define the strategy tomorrow, which goes from the local level to the members of parliament, to the members of the European parliament of your region, to the governments, of the national governments, to the commission, all these levels, the more they will be aware of the fact that we have this wish and that we think it's important for Europe, the more chance it will have to succeed. Of course, the challenge is important. As Nan said, the rise of nationalist and liberal policies in Europe is emptying the European project right now, but that's precisely what we are offering Europe and its institution. We are offering to give content and sense to humanistic project, project that is today threatened by the selfish and nationalist policies of the States, but also by the liberal policies of the Union itself. So, and that's my introduction, I give the world to you. Before we give the world to Julie, I wanted to say that it is, we are looking for endorsements of this field and the email address is on the first page. So we have the alliance is 25 networks, but everybody, every person in Europe can, and also outside Europe, can endorse this letter and the more email addresses, the more names we collect, of course, the stronger we can make out of this. I will show you a dark side. The question is, such a paper, such an appeal, do you think, would it make any impact? And if not this, what else do we have to do? Yeah, we can't do that. I can probably be heard without it because I used to perform outdoors, right? I can be heard, and somebody is here in the room who I actually performed with, so come back to me, okay? I'll put it on a more interesting page. So the letter today, you can, it's not that interesting, which one do you want? If you go to news and go down, well, actually, let's look it up first, shall we? A little bit, yeah, you first, okay. I will answer your question, Nan. Will it do any good? Can I have the document? Yeah, sorry, I haven't had time to read it. I lead a very crazy life, I have to say. On three committees, lots of intergroups, and on top of that, I'm doing loads and loads of human rights work, which is not in my committee, but I believe that human rights is the foundation for a decent world, and if we don't do human rights work, then we might as well not do anything else. So I do that, I'm talking to everything else I do, so I come to a lot, I have to say, come to a lot of meetings through the door, and I haven't seen the documents and things I'm gonna talk about, but maybe that's a good thing, that you hear me talking in an unprepared way about what I care about, what I believe, why I'm doing what I'm doing. It can't do any harm, right? We're in a really bad place. What more, what damage would it do to do anything? Actually, something has to be done. Many things have to be done. So mobilising the sector, and perhaps realising what a parlous situation we're all in, and coming together as a large body of people across different countries, we know that artists cross borders in easier ways, maybe than other people do. So it's important that you're doing it because it's somebody doing something, and it's not one person doing something. It's many networks and organisations doing something. And I think the time is right for something because nobody has any answers anymore. There are no answers really coming from, not really coming from within the political sphere, or, well, I think we have some answers, maybe in the Socialists with Democrats groups, but we need partners to help enact those answers and to develop them. So I think from that perspective, what you're proposing is really, really important. I thought, if you don't mind, I'll read some things that are in my head. After the attacks in November, the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, said, they imagine terror, we answer with culture. They destroy its statues, we love art. And he's now managed to get through his parliament a budget tree line and promise to give youth 500 euros to spend on culture. Now, I want to talk about that partly because I think it's significant and important, but also because it doesn't go far enough, all right? And sometimes the schematic responses of politicians don't really fit easily with the world that you live in and that I used to live and work in because I have been, for all my life, a cultural practitioner who used arts and culture for social change. I work as a poet, a theatre maker, a cultural producer with the most marginalised communities. So I'm now in another world, but I bring that practice with me. So whilst I love the fact that Renzi said those words, when I looked at the actual scheme, I found it very, very narrow. And I think the challenge is, not that politicians don't know, because they do know, he's saying that and he knows that to be true. It's also a very Italian response, isn't it? When the Italians held the presidency of the parliament for the first six months, the whole six months of our debates and discussions were infused with arts and poetry and cultural references, because that's just how Italians do things. It's in their DNA. But translating that into a policy with a budget line can often then feel very cold, very limited, very restrictive. So that 500 euros, they said that it's for 18-year-olds to spend on cultural activities and events, such as music, theatre performances and trips to museums. And I would just like that 500 euros to be spent in a more interesting way for people to have more freedom about how they use that money and what they do with it. And I think that's where we need to make the difference. So we say, yeah, it's great that you think we're gonna fight, we're gonna oppose terrorists and the populists and the nationalists by saying we'll fight it with culture. Yes, because we can do that, we will do that. But actually, perhaps the artists themselves and the beneficiaries themselves would be better to give the ideas about how that 500 euros, whatever, could be spent. So I think we have some at knowledgemen, but putting things into a scheme is not always the answer. And when I was working in the arts, I was always so annoyed with government schemes because what they do is create a narrow framework and we know that art isn't narrow, we know that exploration and creativity is actually somehow that stops it from being its best, it stops it from being what it could be. And it's on the most interesting things we know are happening on the periphery. They're happening at the sort of risky spaces. But that's where innovation takes place, that's where change happens. So I think we need to push, and I can push from within my political group on this, but that's where we need to push, we need to encourage and say, yes, it's fantastic. But actually, is that the right way for us to say that that money should be spent? So there is a commitment there and the leader, I put Gianna, because Gianna is the leader of the Socialists and Democrats in the Parliament, in the Parliament group, and obviously taking a lead from Renzi has now said that we're going to make that a key commitment within the Socialists and Democrats. And I, this week, have been reading, we're drafting a lot of new position papers within the S&D. So we're at, me as an MEP in that group is able to make a strong contribution to that and to see where we can try and put this broader idea, this more creative idea, this more imaginative idea of what a cultural offer could look like within a political strategic document. So it's just a little bit there. Am I able just to speak a bit more? Because that was the bit I didn't plan, okay? Right, I just want to talk a little bit about my perspective on this. This is taken from an article that was going to be published shortly. So I hope that this will fill up some things that might be interesting. Now, when I was elected, lots of people said to me, don't be on the Culture Committee because it's not important. And if cultural activists and artists were telling me that, they were saying to me, but you know I couldn't get on any other committee really because nobody else wants to be on the Culture Committee. And I actually am happy to be on the Culture Committee because if people think it's not important, it's my job to make it important. And because I'm one of the few MEPs who's been an artist. There's two of us, Davey and me. Davey is a Romani musician. He's a Romanian S&D NEP. So both of us from the Culture Committee and we have earned our living from being a cultural practitioner's committee. We're really strong about that. We work with other committees really closely to make sure that they know that culture is fundamental. It's not an add-on. It's not a luxury. It is actually pivotal to everything that we're doing within our institution. And we know that because when we're debating, so I'm still a little more to the plan a bit, when we're debating in the Parliament and when stuff comes up, when reports come up and legislation comes up, anything that is about culture is the most contested debate that we ever have. And I had a report on intercultural dialogue for diversity and fundamental values passed in the Parliament at the beginning of January. And all the right-wing populist, nasty extremist groups used my report as an excuse to bring up the colonial tax because they perceive that identity and culture is being threatened for them. So anything that says we should talk to each other, we should have conversations, we should engage, we should exchange, anything feels like a threat to that culture. In fact, my response, you can watch the bits of the debate, it's all televised if you're not aware and familiar, the European Parliament is actually a very open institution, everything is filmed, you can watch it online. And there's stuff on my website, some bits of the debate, and then at the very end I make a speech that is a response to all the nasty stuff that we've heard beforehand. And I wanted to talk about what it might mean to be English or British, and I always use the example of English folk culture and a specific form of English folk culture that my father engaged in, and that Mike knows about, which is Morris dancing. Morris dancing is guys with hankies and sticks and they jump about with bells and often have funny hats on and it is a really archaic, ancient form of culture, of cultural practice. But it probably is Moorish dancing which comes from the Moors, which is from North Africa, which is Muslim, it is an Islamic cultural practice. So when the UK people and the racists say we want our country back, we want our culture back, we are English, we must only have English culture, I say, what about Morris dancing? You know, that came, you guys are terrified of and are now scapegoating and being xenophobic about. So we have to remind people that culture is not fixed. Right, if I just say a few things from here and I actually say that in here. So those forces want us to believe that culture is fixed, that something is kind of throwback and we have to challenge that by showing them that it's not and we all know it's not and young people are making new forms of culture all the time. They're borrowing from lots and lots of different practices. So I think it's really important that we celebrate cultural diversity, that we empower marginalized communities through the arts and culture and share a positive narrative on different cultures. And I think that is what should be the ultimate purpose of European cultural policy. That culture should be, should strive to help create a more open, inclusive, participatory and cooperative model of democracy for the 21st century. And culture should be recognized as being a shared resource and a public good, not a separate policy subject. And that this belief that I have in intercultural dialogue, cultural diversity, cultural diplomacy are fundamental of the really important tools that we have in order to face the current challenges. Do you want to start with that? Well, because there are questions in order to address them. Continue on this topic. I think now it's very important for us to see how... I mean, it's very impressive the way you are and I'm very happy that you are a person coming from culture so you're still... I just didn't know what you were talking about. The question is, how can we support, how do you think the arts field we, ITM, participants, would support your claim for cultural progress? Is there any power in the massive group of artists and arts professionals to support policymakers, to make a stronger case for cultural progress? Now we see in a way, what helps us now are refugees and terrorists. These are not the alliances that we... those are not the people that we want to have as ours for the arts. We would like to have a political constituency making a case for culture for arts as such for... And how would we... Is there a way we could... I'll just talk about some of the ways with politicians. I think... I don't know how many of you lobby us on an individual basis or on a group basis. But we are lobbied all the time and I think maybe the arts world needs to get better at lobbying. And what that means is making relationships with us. Some of the best lobbyists can do their work. We... have regular meetings with them. They email us stuff that they're up to. And when we are asked to propose experts for group hearings or we... or we want evidence with which to challenge the commissioners or we want evidence to base a report on or a relation of. If we are able to evidence that because we have relationships with people actually that's very powerful and that's how my report was done. And also when the commissioners were... were in... When the commission was established in the first autumn of my legislature which is 2014 we... we were able to ask the commissioner... the commissioner elect questions before we agreed whether or not we were going to vote for him. And I put out a call to lots of cultural organizations saying what do you want... what questions do you want me to ask? So my relationship with the sector with other politicians and with the institutions is to be very consultative and participative. Now I know that's how I do things I don't know if that's how other people do things but I think because I'm making your views do I am I know but you know we could make it so I think what's interesting I mean I was never in politics before so I don't know how it works really and anywhere else. I only know how it works Europe and I only know how it works for me and I'm making it up but what I perceive already is that I'm able to bring a different energy into the parliament because of my grassroots contacts because of the networks and the organizations that I'm working with and so whenever there's a proposal or a call a call for proposals for experts, for pilot projects for example for ideas for visits for cultural visits and MEP has gone cultural visits to see things and see people what I do is troll through all the organizations that I know or literally put a call out to people and people respond and we then propose that. Lots of my proposals have been taken up and I wondered first of all why that was is it because nobody else is making proposals or is it because my proposals are so different from everybody else a lot of the expert group hearings previously seem to be academics speaking people from universities doing research bringing their evidence and whilst I've got a great deal of time for academics it's not always practice based and the best academics that come are the academics that come from a practice base that are working in the real world but most of my experts that I bring are actually people and real people and real projects and when I speak in Parliament in debates or whenever when I'm writing about things I'm using real people and real projects and I discovered I brought, I was going to show this thing now this one down here you go back to news I'll find it so I think one of the things that you need to do you go to news I'll find it one of the things that you need to do is find out who your NEPs are and invite them to things and also ask them tell them you're going to come are open that you can be there you can watch what's happening you can't ask any questions but you can ask your NEPs questions on your behalf and I think there's always a power as a politician if you talk about real projects so this last week for example Jaffa, yeah Jaffa here is one of my constituents who I proposed his work, his project for European Citizens Award and won and then came to Parliament and has been back since subsequently for a number of projects coming across lots of different new networks with young people in Bosnia and that project in Bosnia I used as an example in the speech about the accession process for Bosnia in the Parliament last week and there's a power in that there's a power in me being able to see the completion of the Truth Arts project in Srebrenica working in a pan-European way and world and was funded there's a power in that so I think one of the things that you need to do is to make sure you have relationships and that you batter on that door of your elected representatives and let them know who you are and what you're doing can I just, sorry a few more answers we are establishing in the Parliament an anti-austerity left caucus which I hope will have culture at the heart it's not a new group it comprises of Greens Socialist Endeavour Facts and the GUI NGL group which if you don't know that group is like Seriza Podemos the Nordic Left group and we are gathering together a group of MEPs who are firmly anti-austerity to propose some new models for your it's not that hopeful thing can I just ask you a question related to this question of the definition of a strategy of the priorities of the European Union for the next period are you aware of the way it will work and how do you think the Parliament and maybe the cultural community can ask to have some input into that or is it something already working on it which is why we are doing those strategy documents so I presume all the other groups are doing the same so those for example we are looking at putting children at the heart of policy what does the world look like if you build policy around children's needs and young people's needs what does that look like Education or is it a culture for children well again no I'm not talking about culture I'm just saying for example I have to say culture doesn't stand there isn't paper about culture but it's the other and Damien's job to make sure that culture is in that strategic paper in lots of ways not just in one way and how can we help you when you are really trying to use it because there are other people to get culture into these strategic papers well it's a good time to be lobbying now because these documents are being written so I would suggest that people do send do communicate and the thing is give examples and I don't think this is I don't think we need the quantitative stuff anymore people say we do but we've proven this case we've proven it in euros we've proven it in we've proven it in GDP we've proven it in visitor numbers we've done all that actually it's narrative it's narrative it's the stories what does it mean you'll call your MEP you'll ask for I think what you should do I think you should do I think you can invite MEPs to see I know because I turned up because he's a fantastic lobbyist put your hand up you can see this guy this guy knows how to do it you know how to do it you bother your MEPs you make them feel important as well it didn't matter to me but you bother them you invite them to things you want them to meet your constituents and Jackal works with some of the most marginalised Asian young people in one of the poorest ex-Meltans in Lancashire and those young people have been transformed through your work for sure and I was really proud when you won that award but what I've done is I've gone to the events I've met the young people not only did I go to your award ceremony I turned up in the middle of the Lake District in the middle of nowhere I went to a residential for a week out of Orientalia but you're intrinsic interest I know I have a question for the vlogging is the is that a new channel or what's the reason oh you know what guys you can't do enough of it why do you think the one organisation with very limited resources not very many staff can do that job you all have to do it everybody has to do it who knows satellite group fantastic Dutch organisation working on environmental arts projects they made films about the sea and it's all sorts of amazing stuff turned up in my office with a one-line show performance that they do now they're going to be with me at the European Science event they came to my office with their staff and our lives I left an exciting life working in theatre and poetry and cultural change and activism so when somebody turns up to perform or offers me an opportunity to do something that's not just writing amendments or dealing with difficult constituents actually I'm going to love that and I'm never going to forget it so I think you really have to try and some people will never see you or never but I think there are a lot more we welcome the relationships with you because arts is feel good stuff it makes us feel good we're human beings we're starved of it so you know give us more I'm sorry to be confrontational provocative but actually we said at the beginning that culture always pulls the shorter straw and it's true the cultural community and Hungarian parliament is that by the way is representative and in fact in the European Commission is the Hungarian people and we wrote to we wrote a letter to the association it would be performing artists and we protested very strongly against we summarized the reasons why we shouldn't take this job you also had protest from within the parliament several parties several coalitions and we had also protested on the big length international names and it didn't matter at all so sorry but nothing happened and the Hungarian representative of a very authoritarian government which is killing Carter and bleeding it out in Hungary became the person responsible for Carter in the European Parliament and to stop that from happening it's not entirely true what we didn't do in the committee we voted against him so I don't know how far you followed the process but we voted against him in the committee it's very technical what happens in parliament the commission has to be voted as a whole commission it cannot be voted individually by the parliament in the culture committee we voted against him we gave him a really hard time asking him your questions and we didn't like his answers and we said we don't want you we vote against you so he was not our vote however it was my citizenship from him and then they said he's probably good to go we said no it's not good enough we don't like that either okay if he's not good enough for citizenship is he any good for art no, painfully not so we still protested but by this time I think parliament had almost been there six months we haven't done any work because you cannot progress the process until you've got the commission constituted so in the end the commission was constituted despite the fact there was an issue with him and there was an issue with the environment the environment commissioner and we were not happy with that so when you attack I am not the person to attack because we stood up against it but we had to vote the commission because otherwise nothing would happen budgets were being released for films projects were there was lots of B.S.F. money that wasn't getting in Geneva but if you want to go on my official website sorry this is my nice website you can go on my parliamentary page you look at the explanation of my vote that day you will see that I criticised the commissioner in my explanation of vote so you still have the opportunity to be very critical and understand the process and say that you don't like it and that you're not happy about this this is what you've done already but ultimately I felt also my group that we couldn't hold up the process anymore okay so that's the technicality of it I would like to switch if there's one more urgent question for Julie Ward after that I will switch to the national level to see what we think because I think apart from that we all want to raise the position of culture on the European level I think there are many questions on national level as well here's one more question maybe I can it's nice to make a linking pin there actually because in the European context the European Commission is the sole body that can pose legislation it is a very small entity it doesn't have that much personnel which means that there are policy groups with national public servants they discuss they come up with the policy if you want to influence like pragmatically the European policies you have to go to your national public servants that are in the European coordination committees that produce the policy proposals then we have to match them with an urgent political problem so we can have members of parliament actually gain popular support for the policy proposals already there if you start with the popular support you're too late with your policy proposal that's how your works first the policy proposal then the popular support can you write us down the steps yes I mean it's I happen to be also a public can I just say yes that's great when you have a receptive when you have a very difficult for me right the UK government and the Hungarian government so you have to find some other roots I understand that my government does not speak for me and will never ever take up the things the Conservatives in the European Parliament voted against my report an intercultural dialogue so you know the policies I'm trying to propose and it has been a big majority so it just shows you what we're up against yes you can do that you can't just do that no I mean it's a number you have to have the ideas in place first before you tell that might be useful in the parliament we also have intergroups as well as 20 standing committees and I would say work across other committees as well that's really really important don't just stay in the cult committee foreign affairs is becoming more and more important my office is really active in foreign affairs now because what are we going to do about the security threats and all the rest of it is very much recognised that culture, engagement with young people not just tackling the effects of extremism and radicalisation but looking at the causes when I say extremism and radicalisation I also mean the extreme groups like Pegida, EDL I'm talking about on all sides it's really been recognised that culture has a massive role to play in foreign affairs in diplomacy in peace building in conflict resolution and so there's a big meeting in Brussels next week the culture forum all around that issue we have to be stronger about that so the high representatives takes it on board because sometimes the idea of culture in foreign affairs is just a bit like a whole load of really important buildings got destroyed and we've got to deal with that but actually it's not just that it's about people and expression or the rest of it so working in other committees is important employment working in the employment trying to affect the employment committee is really important as well in terms of skills skills agenda is really important and there are intergroups so outside of the 20 committees there are intergroups which cross party and these get established because certain things fall through the gaps so I was a co-founder of a children's rights group in the parliament and what the intergroups can do is really interesting because they can often lay the ground for policy they can lay the ground for legislation, for pilot projects for a whole load of other initiatives and campaigns that parliament won't pick up also in terms of trying to mainstream some of the things so with the children's rights stuff what we'd like to do is to mainstream that across all the committees in the same way that we do gender mainstreaming so there are so we don't focus on those MEPs that have the culture in their you do need to focus on that because some people are put in culture and they don't understand it seriously some people are in the culture committee and they don't get it some people are in the culture committee and they only think culture is sport actually you do have to because some of the people in the culture committee educate them but also look across those wider committees and then the intergroups there's loads of them there is one on cultural industries and it would be really good to challenge that intergroup a bit about what cultural industries are doing could be doing, should be doing just different models I suppose really my intergroup and children's rights intergroup we've certainly got ways we can work there's also common goods sorry that's really important there's common goods and public services intergroup I hosted a meeting on radical democracy which used photo journalism film making citizen journalism that had happened these are other ways to get in we bring experts in we bring people in to speak to us we post events, we can do that don't just leave it up to the committees and in culture there's all that other stuff I think you're right and that's all the discussion we also had with Pearl maybe we give the world to Anita to talk a bit about this it's easier to have a paragraph on culture in the strategic documents if they are in the initial proposal then to bring them in later so maybe I know Pearl has very often contacts with the commission working with them on a regular basis and so they're going to try to do this work but then I propose to give the work to Anita but what we would like to open also as a discussion because that we have a few people who will talk about the local context of the way they lobby their own countries on a national or on a local level because the idea also for the output of this session ITM would like to maybe to see what the needs are to advocate best on your national level so that maybe we can work on a toolkit just to give you an example of one thing and then the work that we did in France on this specific project in the professional organization Sandeac in which I am active we have regional representatives so people who have direct access to local authorities and also to members of parliament on a regional basis so we set out a letter they can use to get some arguments to talk with their politicians so this is a toolkit we did on a national basis but maybe there could be, but maybe not maybe the local context are so different so we don't know so do we get to work first to Judith and that is all I need I just some of you know I have spoken at ITM about it before but we about five or six years ago we had the same conversation over and over again in the UK and we got together and started a thing it's not an organization it's a thing called what next for the arts and it was it started being an hourly meeting at the Young Vic Theatre every Wednesday morning what was impressive about it for me it was the first time in like many years all art forms and all scales of art organizations working together from individual artists to galleries museums we need to have wider conversations with people who aren't necessarily MPs we need to talk to MPs two we need to talk to audiences we need to talk to people who vote for the MPs we need to raise the issue to talk to teachers widen out the whole conversation and that's where it came from and we still do it in the subsequent 20 or 30 around the country they haven't changed the world but I think they've made a difference in the long run in the budget we didn't get the cut we were expecting we listened to MPs and other people and we also talked to them so it's not a big lobbying attack but I think they have gently and slowly made a difference I'd love it I mean there could be international similarities with the website to share what we've done but it's fascinating it's a bit like going to the gym on a Wednesday morning it really does it's really interesting it's wider than just arts funding it's about culture there's lots of conversation about climate change where we sit in the arts world and it's very optimistic despite the fact that all our governments are doing their best to look at the website I think it's what the next culture has got but it's quite easy to look at it's what we're doing nationally and I think it's made so now we we already jump to the national level I think that is better we press to the national level and now we come back to Anita so we end up with Europe again I think there are more good examples here are people who already did some jobs organizing their own fields as to support to make a lobby lobbying body yes I would like to I'm from Hungary I'm from Budapest 1991 and before that I wanted to say I was very sad about that the same thing is going on for 25 years that we have to be good friends of the politicians to do something so what happened to me in 89 there was a change in 88 I got money from the Soros Foundation to build a theater in Budapest and then there was Cristina Babo in the minister of culture translator and I had a play translated by her so I knew her and she was working for the cultural ministry and then she told me why don't we go to the minister of finances to the minister of finances to have the I don't know how to speak English but they take the short or pain to the budget to have a budget knife for theaters which are not in the structure but at the same time I feel sorry and sad and very bad that we have to do that and now there is nobody we can talk to I mean I don't want to talk to maybe you can maybe you should in fact in fact I know of this association of independent performing artists which I founded well in 90s you know and I know that at this point in time we are a very small minority like Hungary and Poland and possibly UK I don't know in a different way but I think it's it's essential and I know many of you will disagree at this point it has to be a way where we get to the international level where we can join forces on the European level where we can find a way to talk to European MPs and other responsible parties because I personally and also running my own theater I will never speak to the government but as co-chair of this association I felt that my job was different because I had to speak up for all the members so I did and we did them as co-chairs and we spent four months negotiating with the ministry and they were just about not even more money but for the first time in life about announcing the call on time in November rather than March because what happens is you get your money for any calendar here in around September it's a huge problem and you don't find out until May whether you're going to get anything at all so you can't even plan because you don't know what's going to happen so anyway, so we talked to them we had serious negotiations and they were really nodding the whole time as if they understood sub key points, not many like five key points and none of them about more money which we desperately need and as it turned out the call came up later than last year and it was less than last year and none of it was true so in fact, we ended up spending four months using all our energy all our time, all our resources of course none of this paid work which we could have spent you know, joining forces with everyone else with Poland and with other countries to make a lot of plans trying to talk to the politicians so sorry, I know we're a minority but I will keep repeating this until we try to approach them they ask a question everybody turn off just from a personal curiosity in those four months of negotiation every time you had a meeting did you after the meeting, write them a letter summarizing so you had to think some paper email, but yes because this is important that always you remind them when you have met with them remind them what you talked about what they were saying etc because otherwise they could always come back to oh well I didn't say something like that in our country they would say one thing one day and then they would laugh and say opposite who have the impression they can't work on national level because it's no use to work on national level that's a really good question how many people are there Poland is still possible to maybe I don't need a mic thank you yeah I'm from Poland because we discussed here the situation when we have to we have to negotiate and we have to advocate for more money for culture this is what we did in Poland last year I mean we I'm putting myself on a society side on the other side was a non-linear quite open minded it's what we see now government so we were pushing them and more and more there was a big campaign for culture which was also reported to the ITN in previous meetings but what we are facing now is the politicians on the other side which I don't believe and I see and I know that they will not make the cuts in the funds for the culture but this money will be transferred to the very particular part of let's say culture life and so already happening in Poland when enormous money are coming from the national budget to the Catholic church to the national fascist NGOs speaking so this is another thing I don't think we have to fight against the Polish government for more money they are happy to raise the money from the allocation for the culture but this money will be used and it will be used to support the propaganda sorry I'm my badge says UK but I'm based in Belfast in Northern Ireland we have a long long for the last five years concentrations, discussions and almost week by week faces of politicians in those five years were matched by over 23% we are constantly involved in what I said we are in the theatre sector the arts sector across the world we are also constantly being mixed up with sport and wanton we are constantly being involved in committees to justify the existence of the arts against barrage or all how it stops suicide tendencies in young people things like this that you could never ever wanton even if you were to try I'm personally being involved in discussions around the table where you give the argument you give the narrative and to give the wanton fires and at the end of your presentation you are told to speak the wrong language they do not have the language in which to speak glossary or dictionary so we confuse the language they do plan to do us this so we carry on with our narrative we managed to take back some cuts that were given to us last year I don't know how they weren't cuts that were sanctioned by westerns they were just extra cuts so in 2015 should have been given a 16% cut on an arts budget that's the best of 13 million for the whole world and I would assume the end of quite a few of the companies across the board we managed to get a look back so far it looks like a victory but at the end of last year they did away with the department of culture so now we don't have the department of culture arts budget we've been subsumed into communities and citizenship so all we have is we live on quite the UK which is being lashed in terms of culture being used for their agendas very political of all of them and even when you do meet on a long going basis and we're wide open to continuum to meet to be honest with you you're still old or you're shut down so any advice that I can get from any of you guys that I can give you for that we use over and over else it's great to hear the secret sometimes even when the lady moves I know how to very quickly I think I suggest you really report because it's really well done and let me explain just one minute we had an ITM organized a satellite meeting last month in Paris where we brought together representatives from the arts field and policy makers and researchers and so arts councils ministries research institutions and the arts field to discuss the cultural policy topics of today we have to come with indicators but could artists be a partner in deciding which indicators should be measured if we want to evaluate the arts how could we involve artists in decision making processes and is this measuring of impact is that a way we should go or should we quickly quit with that because the real value of art is not measured in the way we normally measure impact this was our meeting and we have to report as you say on our website it's very well done now and so going back to that it was the first moment I would say that the two organizations representatives of the artists worked together in a representative of the history of culture it was the first moment we wanted three of us together it was the first moment and it was very important in terms of that of the informal situations so going back to that we were discussing a lot of the intrinsic value of arts how do we measure them and the long-term impact of that intrinsic value so which are the new artists related to arts and how can we use them in relation to the policy makers in Portugal like in many other countries we passed those moments of measuring number of audiences number of performances and lately the economical impact of art which is very important and it gave us some arguments going on with this relation of course it depends a lot on people who is there and how important they are to listen to us so it's a building of trust but first they have to know they have to open, they have to receive us so lately we are founding a very good I think we have a good situation in Portugal first we have for eight years so we have now for four months we trust this miss but we have another one this week so it's always starting from the zero points so this building of trust I think we are in a good way in this situation I have three suggestions to do things that are already happening one thing is the research it is proposed by the faculty of economy they did a study in Portugal on the economical impact some years ago and now they were suggested to do another study on the strategic impact of the culture so this is one thing that I hope it's going to happen another suggestion is that there is 600 people here so 600 people spreading the word it's a lot so it's easy we don't have to do this every day we don't have to spy all the time but I think we will do a big way also so talk about the heart yes to spread the word about this paper that's answering your question I don't know if it's possible to advocate for culture in France actually it's not only a question of financial crisis because we are facing we are actually at the end of a 30 years process of decentralization that hasn't been decided just in the last years and we had also a few elections in the regional level in the department level and we have to face many many elected without any idea about political about political issues and projects these are the programs actually and this decentralization process has made that the state transferred many competencies to local authorities these competencies are healthcare, transportation etc and these are obligatory competencies culture is optional do you see what they mean? culture is over to them in France we are facing many many better cuts but we will have more and more in the coming years and I don't know what will happen in my organization the only thing we could do is I'm coordinating a network as concept we decided to ask different professional networks and limited networks to organize some meetings we have to issue what we do to see how this new decentralization process is opening some new dynamics and new cooperation process we asked them to come to a meeting in October and I don't know if we will succeed in anything in this way but that's the only way we could think it was to do something and I'm not sure you're interesting in the fact that maybe the European Parliament is to reflect the local collective and where we have to fight and to train to educate is local and elected to get more and more involved Julie because I also had the impression that maybe it's not always national to European but maybe it's both it's indeed local to European more but it's also that maybe is there any power in Europe to influence on the national levels because there are many national policies now that are taking the wrong direction the British perspective is very difficult obviously because we have one of the most right-wing conservative governments that we've seen in a long time who are now embroiled in the most ugly, awful political battle for leadership and not really and there's a great I have to say there's great fear in Britain about about talking about Europe too much you know I would prefer more Europe, not less you know I gave up my other life to defend the Europe that I believe in even though which I've experienced through the arts is my journey into politics so I and certainly and certainly back home a lot of actually I think that local councillors in a way might be more persuadable than MPs, the national politicians that's because they are often people who are having to make the decisions about whether or not to close the library or to close the art gallery or to amalgamate two organisations that previously were one so I do think that at a very local level and also as MPs we have very strong relationships with a lot of local politicians, they come out to parliament on missions, we meet them we go to their meetings back home I hardly know any of the Labour MPs I mean I wasn't in politics before so that's partly the reason but even so, two years you think I would know them, wouldn't you you think I would know who they are so there is, I think that local and European actually that is working quite well together when local politicians come out to see our work the European Parliament can actually support visits, organised visits by groups and subsidies to do that to give people travel costs and accommodation and subsidy certainly when people have been out and had those experiences met people, looked at committees seen some of the work they supported in my office a group of young artists who all work through an organisation called Panda, forming Arts Network Development Agency in the North West and who actually decided they don't want to have any core funding from the government because they'd like to be critical and I think that's a really interesting quite a strong position to take and they've managed to be very entrepreneurial about how they get lots of different funds together to to continue and in fact I ran an organisation that never ever had any core funding so I know you can do it but when those young people came out they didn't really know about Europe they didn't understand about it I don't think they even met any politicians they came out and spent two days in Brussels we connected them with other arts organisations in Brussels their confidence levels have really risen and they've become advocates for if you like a different Europe and I think that's the thing, I'm not here to defend the Europe that we all are scared of and hate and are fighting at the minute I think we have to find ways I think we have to find ways to push for this to push for a more social Europe that works for people so we're in a very hard place at the minute a little bit of me actually, if I had to say a bit of me is a bit frustrated at the sector because I think I think we're in such a dangerous situation at the minute that I think we should be turning some of our attention actually to those extremists who will destroy really what they don't want any of the things that we care about they don't want any of those debates those discussions, those relationships those imaginations that vision, that creativity that celebration they don't want any of that and I think right now it's the time for more people to be political I would like to see more people actually do what I did it's hard it's tough, it's intense but actually it's right now it's important that there are more different, wider, diverse voices people standing up for what you believe in what I believed in, for what I did for 30 years because otherwise no, who else is going to do it who else is going to do it if you don't do it me and Damien by ourselves, we need more of you actually I'd like to see more people doing what we do very good call yeah okay just stop, you want to you always have to provide a positive example of how you can organize yourself to make a stronger force and I think since we have a few minutes left I give you the mark to explain what we did in Berlin we hear so many things of countries where politically integration really changes to the very, very bad one the different problem I think is a huge catastrophe, it's so close to Germany where collaboration started to be better and better, and now this is the reason of example I can see from Berlin I'm speaking only from Berlin, they're not on the national level because it's difficult because there is enormous money in other countries, very rich they are the political system at least until now it's quite stable, we see the first very, very dark clouds with the IFD, with PIGIDA with the elections, then things may change I think when you look at this story of the development since the war broke down, and then we have this when we leave with this coalition we can't see where we start to sit together and I think so a couple of things we learned from them was that united we are stronger then divided so this is a dumbledore but it really worked because when we were divided, the politicians or the executive power which is one unit, which is one administration, just naturally not because there were me but just naturally they are sitting in one office and we come to different arts where they are from different fields so as long as we don't speak with each other probably we are united in different art forms so if literature goes there and speaks to the politicians that theater goes there performing arts and dance goes there and visual art goes there and since we don't speak with each other it's just natural it's not by being me, but it's natural that we fall apart and we don't know what we cannot control than what they say or what the politicians say and what they do and how they act on us we are united beyond the boundaries of different art practices works quite well and we thought at the beginning this was not possible because a visual artist is working in such a different way than a theater artist or a dancer is so different from someone who makes literature and that's true, they are collective arts they are individual arts all these arts have a time of preparation, of research of thinking about something and these arts have a second time of production, whether it is writing or rehearsing or painting or whatever and all these arts have a time of presentation whether it is the show that you do or it is the book that you have printed so why not apply things that work in different arts well, apply whether they give a lot of money to rent at least for visual artists well, maybe this doesn't really work for other arts or there is a good system for independent theaters of course there is always not enough money so we always have to say it's not enough money but it actually works not so rare but this for example doesn't work for publishing houses because they say small lyrics contemporary lyrics of contemporary literature houses that have editions of 20 years they never do that because it's an edition like a published house they say it's an economical entity so do not just look in the funding systems systematizing would help them I personally don't like speaking of culture I think I know it's cultural it's cultural things a lot I think I prefer speaking of arts I think we should be very very precise in always always speaking of arts, arts, arts artistic production, artistic critiques instead of culture we have a very beautiful culture of art was in Germany or we have also a very beautiful culture of burning houses of refugees it's one every night so we do that very consequently we don't speak so much of the press but this is also part of our receiving culture that we don't speak about we should I think speak about art and I think we should be very very distinct that I think this is common ground here not speak about creating businesses or creative cluster or something like that and this is something I really hope that we can achieve in the European Parliament it's not about art it's not about creativity or creative businesses or a cluster or something like that we should keep art and the artistic production there as such not as part of creative businesses because then we're getting completely lost one thing that was always very difficult if you come together and speak at this time we all know that if you're just speaking of one artistic field is that in very fast discussion about how good is this how bad is that so you speak about quality and you speak about is this maybe conservative let's say theater makers progressive or temporary theater this is not really theater this is performance or something like that I think if we're speaking of cultural policy I use the word cultural again I love that if we're speaking of cultural policy that prevents us from speaking about the quality of art it's a business like that it's a policy, it's in our health system it's our school system so taking the quality problem as our problem is just wrong it's everywhere so not speaking about art what is art and what is not that's about cultural policy I think in keeping these things very clear and keeping the words very clear that helped us a lot but in this for very long about the alternative scene that implies that it's young that implies that it's emerging that implies also that this is not young anymore that it's not emerging anymore that it's failed so all these words emerging or not of or alternative we try we don't speak of scenic or alternative anymore or alternative scenic we speak of client scenic of independent art and independent in the question of funding of course the opposition and I don't mean in any way unfriendly opposition but in the logical position of institutionally funded art so independently funded art is one thing institutionally funded art is another thing and keeping this word independent art has helped us to accept that this is a serious way to work actually the thing of saying this is emerging art so the theater or institution works for theater for dance but how would it work for visual arts for example works in a museum with an ensemble of visual artists so logically it doesn't work but we still work with this of these words so that's what helped us speaking including all different arts creating bridges to this I think the word doesn't exist but it's like something being hermetic contemporary art often is very hermetic and we don't want to speak with and we often do not have the good organization that includes all giving them the possibility to speak with someone from these art scenes that helped us a lot and then addressing the politicians not as our adversaries but as the first as you just mentioned it as the first people that we have to make strong that in their view I'm completely conscious that works only in a sort of people that you don't believe that you know that they will lie to you this is super super difficult out there and then also you can this is what worked a little bit to have the media as partners that of course it only works if the media are out of control but yeah so how we work in Turkey how does it work in I don't know about Poland but I think it's not there yet so so that's a little bit of strategy I think we can collect more and I I mean we won't end up before I give the mark to Anita we won't end up with the manual today there has been several working groups on advocacy about 10 years ago and in case of this year he was tolerating it together with three sessions I think we still have those reports we can start with recommendation I think most of them are still valid unfortunately so we are definitely new we add yours we add yours I hope you both will contribute to a publication that is in the making by this type of sessions so we will have to thank you and help us to construct a manual that won't apply or be applicable for all of us but at least you can pick out those points that might be helpful in your situation I think it's a good moment to close the session with Anita Dabada who is working a lot on the commission and I think she can tell a bit about the world so as Nan said we worked on this paper together I've heard a lot of interesting things as I hear it there's a lot going on in different countries so I think that is a very kind of positive movement that is happening some of the things I would like to respond to as well in what was said by different persons and where I think I can also bring in some things you know that the European commission is the one that can take the initiative so it's not like in the national member states it's the parliament that proposes a legislative it's actually in Europe it's the commission so that's why we are targeting the commission in our daily practice these are several ways how we do it and we go in that in a very kind of technical manner there are many opportunities where we can take hard through consultations through being part of expert groups through taking part in stakeholder meetings and we do that not just at the cultural level but we do that in many other policy areas because that's the transversal element that we are trying to achieve like you say also in the parliament it's not just about culture that we need to focus there's a lot that you can achieve by other commission services there's a lot sympathy that you can gain in other commission services whether it is those that are working on the digital environment on external relations they are often seeing us a bit like hey, hello guys how are a lot of you? interesting tourism also in the parliament a very active group but also a group where we here when we go to the DJ Enterprise this is interesting and here we become instrumental but what we try to do is to speak the language of what they are using and that I think I heard that also here is about speaking the language that they are using if it's I don't mind really honestly to call what we do creative content if it makes them understand what we are talking about if for them it fits in their books it's the same thing as if you are explaining to your neighbor who is what else an engineer and they say what are you doing? I try to explain it what I am doing on a daily basis with the terms that I think an engineer will understand so that's the kind of process that helps a lot and that we also apply in any of our conversations and that brings us forward I felt a lot of support also in the parliament unfortunately not that much in the culture committee if I may say so but by other groups and one example is a Hungarian politician who supported us very much of trying to get a visa through for touring artists and we were so sad that the culture committee decided not to give an opinion on what was really targeted as supporting artists for visa so for obtaining visa we are coming to the European Union and there we felt a lot of support by someone who sits in the tourism committee so sometimes we are looking and we do that almost in a very complicated way who can help us and if it serves our purposes why don't we do it those that are willing to help and those that are willing to listen let's go for them so it's a work that you have to do it's about never giving up it's about saying all the time let's continue today we didn't win the battle this time and that's how we are going to win the war so this is like what we are saying is never be disappointed sometimes you are disappointed and you work skeptical and cynical about things and I think we should be aware of not becoming cynical and skeptical about it but continue to have our view of what is our target and we know that this is in a way that all the crisis is happening in Europe this is the right moment to stand up we see it in the movements the citizens movements that are rising across Europe but we have to go hand in hand to our citizens movements because this is how we can from a grassroots level then also reach it there's one other institution that was not mentioned and because we talked about the local level there's a committee of the regions and there also the committee of the regions can be helpful because they can also issue reports of course it's just a report this report you can always say I have got something in hand the committee of the regions which is a large group of delegates from local politicians they can also be supportive in bringing forward our demands so we have to work on so many things and we are with very small teams so we need to do that all together and I think what you'll be saying is very important that when in your respective countries and we can easily do that with ITM circulate who are the members of the parliament in your respective countries because you're not all the time you brush you're also often in your own bureau in your own country and there you can also meet with members of the parliament and talk to them and bring forward the messages because absolutely just in Brussels it's not only there that this is happening it's also happening in respective countries I just wanted to make one final comment about power or the importance that we need to target of course the Beijing culture there is they have limited powers that is true but yet you have to have on a constant basis in communication with them tell what we are doing keep them updated etc now where they can actually have some influence is at the counseling level and there the political body is called the culture affairs committee so they often refer to that as a CAG and it's there where the political decisions are made it's there where every six months a presidency will make certain statements or council conclusions this year or this half year the presidency unfortunately they are not very active performing arts they are more focussing on the audiovisual sector so this is where we can work in like foresee what the next presidency what kind of topics they are going to work on you have to distinct that it's something that is often mentioned too it's an open method of coordination groups which is a kind of soft power but it doesn't have a real big political impact it does it through a kind of process of meeting which is important yes but they are not the ones who are going to give real decisions it's a culture affairs committee in which other type of persons and people attending argument of coordination groups so this is something a kind of theoretical thing that I wanted to bring forward but don't be misled by those different terms but we could also perhaps in that house do a glossary of who it was we need to draw the map and make it because we can all get it on the website but it is more complex so just to conclude I think what many of you said and I repeated again the language is very important what I think was also said is about building trust I think this is indeed a possibility or something we can further explore more of those meetings sometimes national politicians feel more comfortable they are in an international meeting than that they are having to discuss it at a national level so they can speak they have a bit more freedom to speak or they feel less threatened by being in their national and feeling the needed pressure so I think this is something we can explore also to get a bit more of those meetings in terms of building together national politicians that's about that and I'm just looking what I am trying to circle I think that's a bit that's it, thank you thank you