 Okay, good morning everybody, good morning and welcome back to our guest list participants and livestream audience as well for this second day of the European Theatre Forum 2020 European Performing Arts in Focus. We will start this second day with an opening speech by a special guest which we will present shortly before going over then to the presentation of the study the situation of theatres in the EU member states which is something we have been really looking forward to in the European theatre landscape. This will take place during the first part of the morning the second part from 10 am onwards will be divided into two sessions dedicated to environmental sustainability and EU cultural policies greening the theatre and performing arts sector and of course throughout the day this afternoon as well our forum platform stays open is available for you to meet exchange and network just as we did yesterday during the table talks with German organizations. Don't hesitate to already set up meetings in our informal networking rooms with the other attendees using the zoom chat the text chat on the forum platform or even the list of contacts you've received received per email to inform people of the rooms you'll be going to now. This way you can make sure that you will meet all the persons you want to talk and to meet during the forum. And because we are here to talk about the future chances and possibilities in theatre and performing arts it is our pleasure to invite you to join the 10th edition of the Fast Forward European Festival for Young Stage Directors starting this afternoon at 2.15. It is hosted by Sztatschauspiel President. The pandemic has shown us all how fragile the structures on which we have built our security are but the festival as a place for discovery creativity and innovation with this year edition entitled at work invite you for four full days to immerse yourself in virtual worlds and test new perspective. As we all know this European theatre forum is happening while most theatre and performing arts venues in Europe are currently closed to the audience not even rehearsing or some in the best case scenario only playing for very limited audience of 20 or 30 persons like where you are young at the theatre in Luxembourg. So we want to show the direct and undeniable effects of the pandemic on our sector and because the images are stronger than words we have prepared for you a video. Yes I am sure most of you have been witnessing first hand this difficult situation and the uncertainty of your latest artistic work which for someone has been cancelled reported postponed or even cancelled second time. So this time so with their accumulation of empty audiences asked for a lot of patience and strong nerves and of course glimmers of hope that the situation will get better for us for all of us. But right now even with those strong images we are nonetheless extremely extremely honored to have Maria Gabrielle European Commissioner for Innovation Research Culture Education Youth and Sports open our discussions for today. We know that's it I'm told we are a bit early this is unusual normally at these points and time we're running behind the schedule but we are a bit early this morning so we'll ask everybody to be a little patient and the sessions will go on shortly. Okay maybe in the meantime we can just say a few words about this day which is entitled making progress after yesterday we have stage the stage today we are trying to make in progress in our discussions in our what it is to be done and because we have seen these images with the empty theaters it is really for us the artists for the performance this feeling to be homeless having a home not having the possibility to really to enter in contact with your audiences with the people to which you are addressing your work this has affected us all very very much because for us the space the place itself the direct contact the proximity plays an extremely important and decisive decisive role it is almost inimaginable for us even though we are trying to adjust ourselves to these times to understand how how can we still practice our profession when the basis themselves some of the main levels are cancelled so how how is it possible for us to make our art the invisible visible to the audience the soul the spirit the mind to touch all this when the the physical presence of the audience the space the space itself when this can happen are missing so we are all trying to find to make this progress to understand what and how theater as a public space as a vector of direct transmission of emotion and ideas that are circulating between spectators and our audiences can continue to exist this is the one of the main objectives of this forum and we really hope you will see in this next session with Maria Gabriel we have we are we are touching and opening some very very important aspects and I think Maria Gabriel is here and ready to talk to us so we'll pass it over to her thank you thank you very much dear Gina so emotional messages thank you for touching our hearts ladies and gentlemen first of all really thank you very much for inviting me to open this second day of the first ever theater forum an initiative that I fully support because I really I really believe that theater is fundamental for our society beyond entertainment it also has a strong education purpose provoking our thoughts our critical thinking and our social dialogue contributing to the changes that affect our societies and for an audience to look at live theater is to reflect on itself on its identity on its society and theater since ancient Greece has always been a key pillar for democracy for this reason this performing art needs to be supported and nurtured even more so in a situation like the one we are living we are performing arts are at risk on our side you can count on our firm support first of course we have creative Europe program the only instrument at European level entirely dedicated to the culture and creative sectors you all know how much over the years creative Europe has supported theater which comes second only to music in terms of projects funded it is true creative Europe that before the summer we published the call for tendons worth two and a half million euros to support the cross border circulation and digital distribution of performing arts works and I think that we have some good news the last two days after the conclusion of the negotiations between the European Parliament the Council and the European Commission I think that we should continue to promote together with creative Europe program how how to support the sector better because we have some good practices but we need to innovate I think that the live recording and streaming of the supported performances will be promoted as a complement to reach a broader audience and make touring more sustainable and this support allow me to to say it immediately will continue in the next programming period second I would like to share with you that we need we need a regular and direct dialogue with the sector the crisis is affecting all of us therefore we need to help each other to share best practices experiences solutions and this first European theater forum has a crucial role in this regard connecting European theaters to each other and I very much hope that the forum forum will become a regular tool of dialogue exchange improvement and I would also like to invite you to share your views ideas and solutions on the creative unite platform a platform for and by the sector that offers a curated spaces to co-create and upload content and contribution when we launched the platform in May that was just a good idea now we have more than 26 000 registered users and over 600 published posts what I would like to see now is what are the main solutions that we can operationalize that we can put on the ground with a concrete benefit for the sector and for our citizens third I think that we need not only to stop to creative Europe not only to stop to the creative unite platform we need to think how to include the fundamental role of theater in other initiatives of the European Commission of course I'm thinking here spontaneously about the conference on the future of Europe I cannot see a better way to get citizens involved in a wide range debate on Europe's future in the coming decade and beyond then through theater and performing arts my colleague vice president Dografka Schweitzer is responsible for the conference I really invite you to contact her and to see how we can just make more visible your fundamental contribution second initiative let's think about the new european Bauhaus as you know this will be a bridge between the world of science and technology and the world of culture and art and it will also be a thinking and experiment space the european Bauhaus will be rolled out in three phases a design phase a delivery phase and diffuse phase and for me theaters are places to exchange in debate and your contribution in the first design phase will be important as the president von der leyen said it if europe is to lead the way in the twin green and digital transition we should engage in cultural debates as well and that's bringing me to my third point the european green deal to achieve this goal we need to engage all citizens at all levels they should be empowered and only theaters and culture more broadly have this power to reach everyone turning the green deal into a societal and cultural project the music sector for instance has already started moving along this line with the music declares emergency and i'm very glad to hear that later today you will discuss the environmental sustainability and the greening of the performing arts on this note i would like to inform you that the european parliament has approved a resolution in september on the effective measures to green erasmus plus creative europe and the solidarity european solidarity groups let's see how we can use these recommendations and to turn them into actions the fourth initiative i would like to raise with you is my current work with the committee of the regions let's think more and more about this following committing with its president we decided to establish a joint action plan for the next two years because theaters are in every one of our regions but we need to strengthen this and i invite you really to follow this closely it will certainly be of your interest in view of your deep local and regional roots throughout the european union we'll have 26 actions based on four priority areas and of course you know me now culture arts will be one of these let's see how we can build synergies with our regions with the regional development fund how we can really strengthen not only the different tools for support for the sector but how we can build a real ecosystem a real european network so let me now conclude on with one quote from oscar wild i regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being thank you very much for inspiring us every day and count on us on our firm support not only in these difficult times but for a resilient recovery for innovation and for just have the sector to thrive in these opportunity times that's my my message thank you very much thank you very much for your warm words ideas and initiative we are going now further yan is introducing