 Well, well, thank you for this very rich session that we had, and we come towards the end of today's discussion, only today's discussion, because actually this is the real beginning. We have the pleasure of having with us two European members of the Parliament, members of the European Parliament, apologies, Madame Ferring and Mr. Nienas, who I also saw yesterday. She is very active at the theatre forum at the moment. And just to kind of launch this discussion, because we felt as a working group, it was very important to reach out to you both, to the European Parliament, being that greening is a very international, is a very European-wide topic. It's not something we can just carry on on ourselves. We need you to support us, to be able to make the change happening. And we heard that this morning from very young people, 15, 16 years old activists, who told us how we can make changes from very small practices to larger actions. We heard from people who were working on the policy side in their particular countries, on the funders as well. And we heard from artists and from people who were very much involved in the day-to-day running of theatres and the culture sector, how they can make changes. Now we're very curious to hear from you how you have been seeing this process happening. You're following closely the European policy-making in the Code Committee. There have been two reports. The report that you have led, Madame Ferring, on effective measures to green Erasmus Plus, Creative Europe and the European Solidarity Corps. And then there was also the opinion in which you were involved as shadow rapporteur on the Sustainable Europe Investment Plan, how to finance the Green Deal. And I've also read that you were involved as well in another report on sustainable tourism. So I think you were the right person to speak and to ask you what kind of process do you think the culture sector should take? What instruments there are at the European policy level to support a process of change in the available funding programs and in the future funding programs of the next MFN. The floor is yours, Madame Ferring. Hello. First I would like to thank you for your invitation. I'm very pleased to see you and I'm very pleased to see my colleague Niklas Nienas because we unfortunately have not so much occasion to meet in this very strange period. So as you said, we have a very important role to play in the, as policy makers because we have many occasion to earmark culture in the European policies. As you say, we have worked on the Green Deal issues since the beginning of our mandate and today at the European level, we work every day to increase the importance of the Green Transition. Today, 30% in the new budget of the EU that has been decided yesterday is earmarked for the Green Deal. So culture, we think culture should be as always the cornerstone of the change and that's why it's so important for culture to be in the heart of the policies. As you said, I work on many fights on this topic. First, I want to present myself. I'm the French member of the Renew Group and I'm a coordinator in the Culture Committee for my group. So I work very intensely on different topics. And as you said, I've been a reporter often on an initiative for the greening of the EU programs on education and culture. Even though the biggest part of my report was on the Erasmus Plus program, culture was at the heart of my reflection because there was a large part of this report about mobility. It's a concern in every program, mainly on Erasmus Plus, but as well on the European Solidarity Corp for youngest, for voluntary programs and on the creative issue as well. On culture, I had two reflections and I had two principles. Of course, not to intervene on the creation which is the field of the artists and the authors. The second was to have a bottom-up approach to systematize good practices that emerge in the framework of the Creative Europe program. As you said, you have heard young people this morning having new ideas, nice ideas, maybe simple ideas. And for my, I have to tell you about my experience because I've met a lot of stakeholders as I was writing and working on this report. I have attended as well the Berlin Hall where many roundtables on this topic were organized. And also the Etats Généraux, the festival in Avignon that was organized by the French ministers and the French Ministry of Culture. And there were a lot of reflection on the Greening issue. And I've heard many ideas, very interesting and very simple. So we have to hear from the experience of the artists, technicians, and many ideas were on eco-design, whether we are talking about theater sets. I think there was an idea this morning about these questions. How you construct them and you can reuse. I have this experience in my city where some sets were built with local artists and local people, the worker. And so it was a very good thing without transportation, you know, with local materials. So it was a very good experience. I have as well ideas about the final location because we don't always need to go further and further to find good places. And that is related as well with social issues because we have to work on the status of, you know, the social point of we will soon begin to work on this because we have so many differences in the wages in the sector and different status. So sometimes it's cheaper to go very far away, but it's not a good solution. So we have to work on this social issue. Of course we have a point as well about technologies and that is very interesting because there are many progress that are being realizing in the lighting, in energy. And as well in the question of thermic insulation of theatres. So that is connected and related with technology, techniques. And there are as well many programs in the EU, you know, as a horizon Europe that can act on this point. And we have some structures like European Institute of Technologies that have a special field on this reflection. There is also many partnerships to build with cities because we have the reflection on the link between European transportation and the schedules of the shows, for example. We have a network of European cities called Euro cities that works on this topic. And I have met them and I met them in my cities as well. That's why, so, you know, all these points I worked on and they are today in the resolution that we have voted in the European Parliament. And in this regard, the charter for creative Euro projects and the wide sea collection of good and practices guides seems to be the best idea. So the report has also explored over trace such as the creation of a network of climate and sustainability consultants. It's a new job, very important new job to advise project leaders and creative Europe offices. What would I like to say? Yes. Today, we have to do and to achieve this progress. But first, as the sector is in a very delicate situation, it's hard to ask for groundbreaking changes without sufficient funding. This is why our call committee, where Nicholas and I are members, fought a lot for an increase of the creative Euro programs budget. And in addition, and in our name of NEP name, I'm proud to announce that we managed to add 6,000 million euros to this program's envelope for the next EU budget. Moreover, we have worked intensively so that the cultural and creative actor hit by the consequences of the pandemic could get a decent share of the recovery plan. And the conclusion of his work is a resolution adopted by a large majority of the European Parliament last September. And urging member states to allocate at least 2% of their national recovery plan to cultural and creative sectors. We have to fight again and again for this because it's not adopted yet. But and today, only three countries on 27 member states have presented recovery plan for culture. It's Germany, Italy and France. So we have to act and to fight for this again and again. So I wouldn't be no more longer here to answer your question. I think my colleague would like to add something and I'm here to answer your questions. Thank you very much. You touched upon quite a lot of issues that we actually wanted to ask you. So you have been answering already quite a lot of our questions. But indeed, I mean, we are in difficult times. The recovery plans are absolutely needed for our sector because it touches on the heart of what we do. Being mobile, being working with the live audience. And it's interesting to observe that it takes time for countries to actually take that into their plans. They look at the larger industries, but they seem to forget that actually our sectors, there are say that these words because we have just been also acknowledging the intrinsic value of art and even the fact that the sector shouldn't be an instrument to kind of advocate the green notion. At the same time, we are also an economic industry. We employ people. We create jobs. We generate tourism, et cetera. So do you see any, would you have any advice to us? How we can ask our politicians in the member states to include culture and the green, of course, the green notion, but we will include culture in their recovery plans. It's a bit aside of what we are discussing now, but nevertheless, the green is an overarching scope. And perhaps you can answer already this question. And then Nicholas, I will definitely come to you. Would you like to answer this question? It's my turn to answer. Yes, please. So I think first you can talk about the work we are doing in the European Parliament because there are many things to say today. We have this resolution. We have a fight in this time because, you know, for the recovery plan, there is a text for the recovery and resilience facility where we want to remark this at least two persons. We have to fight again. And we are doing it in this, at the time we are speaking with Nicholas. And I hope it will be adopted, but it's really, it's a fight. Also, you have something to find in the cohesion policy and the European, the regional phones, because we have added the mention of culture everywhere. You have this ReactU program where culture has been added because, as you said, it's for the culture, but it's linked with tourism. And Europe has raised this topic of tourism. But it's not something, you know, you have to take some ways to talk about culture with something that can be considered because it's not true, but tourism is a good way to talk about culture. So I know we have different cultures. We are from different countries. In some cultures, it may be considered as a culture of tourism, but it's not something, you know, you have to take some ways to talk about culture with something that may be considered as more important for our leaders, political leaders. So you have this European work that is very, very important and shared by the majority of the member of parliament. So talk about it, please. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. So I'll turn to my colleague, Silke Larvani, who will introduce the conversation with Nicholas. Yes, hello, everybody. Hello to all European colleagues. I'm very happy to introduce our second guest in this concluding session. Welcome, Nicholas Nieners. I have seen you already, so I know you are here. Thank you so much for joining us and also following the European Theatre Forum. Mr. Nieners, you were elected last year member of the European Parliament as a German citizen and you're part of the group of Greens. You have been contributing in parliament to make the voice of culture heard quite a lot as your colleague, Ms. Vareng, as well. Since the beginning of the pandemic, actually, with first an open letter to the EU with supporting the demand of the 2% for culture that we just addressed. You're also the coordinator of the European Parliament Cultural Creators Friendship Group, a sort of coalition in the European Parliament with members from six different political groups. And the aim of this group actually is to improve the whole European cultural ecosystem. So we are sure we have the right speaker here. Please, Ms. Nieners, for the statement, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for inviting me today again after I spoke yesterday concerning the workers' rights, which is also a very important issue that we're tackling in the CCFG in the Cultural Creators Friendship Group and also in the European Parliament, obviously. Now for the greening. I was very interested in hearing all these statements that were made, and it's good to see a loss here in this meeting as well, since she was the repertor for the initiative report of the cult committee concerning the greening of the cultural sectors. And so we can see that we have already done a lot of research, one for one part as the European Parliament, but then also from the other part, from the sector itself, from all the members and all the involved actors in the sector. And so the research is done. A lot of people have proposed different strategies and ideas. And I have to say when I heard about this report the first time I was a little bit skeptical because I think that if we talk about only about how can we reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the cultural sector, I think there would be too easy or too non relevant. Because to be quite honest, if we're talking about transport and that is a relevant issue, however it is one that in my understanding falls rather under the question of, for example, the transport committee in which we consider how can we ensure that logistics and personal transport are carbon dioxide free. And if that's solved, then the biggest issue for the cultural sector will be gone as well. The next idea would be the production. Yes, the production firms and depending on the set you have more resources used and so on and so forth. However, this is also an issue that could be solved in other directions. For example, in the European Parliament and the each committee which is responsible for industry. So if we have a general carbon free production of goods in Europe, then this problem is mainly taken care of as well. So where really goes the idea of greening of the cultural sector. And I think the biggest impact that the whole cultural sector has always had had and will always have is not so much on their direct touching of production or the direct input of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But the biggest impact that the cultural and creative sector has is always into the society, into the people that are listening, that are following, that are touched by the ideas and the art that is created. And this power, this influence needs to be used in order for the greening. That is the real question that we need to solve. And that is the real issue that we need to tackle with the cultural and creative sector. If we want a carbon free Europe by 2050, if we want a future for this planet that has a huge biodiversity, if we want a better future for our children and grandchildren, then we need a change of society. We don't just need to change the way we produce, we don't just need to change the way we travel and do logistics. We need to change as a society and as persons and we need to reevaluate our values and our way of life. And the only force that can deliver on this is not politics. It's not science. It is always education and arts and culture. Because culture has this huge impact on the society and can really question everything we do as a society. And that is, I believe, the biggest challenge also for the cultural and creative sector to actually deliver on this if they want so. Because I, as a politician, cannot, will not and must not tell artists what to do and what to focus in their arts. The art is free and it is especially free from the influence of any politicians. But if we want to deliver on the greening of the planet, but also on the greening of society and in that I believe it is important to also talk about the social aspects of the change that we are about to happen. It's a big question that we need to discuss and need to answer probably also in the cultural sense. Then we need to follow a discussion or we need to start a discussion in the cultural sector that is led by scientific evidence. I believe the first instance that for me personally is important for the sector is something called in German it has the funny name of B and E in English. I don't know if there is a similar abbreviation but it's called the education for sustainable development. And that is something in which I worked on previously and that showed me if we want to educate the whole continent on this issue, on this very important issue, we need to start by the multiplicators. So we need to ensure that everybody who is interested in talking about this issue gets proper education, gets all the information that they want and that they need. So examples that I heard earlier from several speakers of production helpers and education in the production sectors is very much needed and I think that is something that we must deliver on. It is good that we have this initiative report on greening of the European programs which will enable for example that Creative Europe will have a stricter standard on greening initiatives and so on. That is definitely a good place to learn but I think we need more initiatives to go into all of the member states because that is what's missing at the moment and to help all the member states to develop more on education on sustainable development, not just on CO2 reduction but on the whole chain of sustainable development which I deem is very important for the whole societal discussion that only culture can really lead to. I want to leave it here. I just want to mention two words concerning the question that was asked earlier to Laurence because I want to mention something on there as well. How can we, we have heard Laurence said already we have an increase of 600 million euros for the Creative Europe program. We also have an increase of 2.2 billion euros for the Erasmus Plus program bringing those two programs to 2.2 billion for the Creative Europe and 23.5 billion for the Erasmus program. This is great news. We are still fighting to get the possibility for the RF funding to be delivered into the member states. There will definitely be the possibility but we want obviously to make it mandatory for the member states to actually spend the money on culture. There is in ReactU as Laurence said the possibility to get funding for culture. There is the possibility in all the structural funds I have to repeat that in all the structural funds that are already existing there is the possibility to get funding for infrastructure for the creative and cultural sector. There is also in the ESF the possibility to use the ESF funding to for example promote education in the arts to access schools and deliver on musical schools and so on. This is possible with ESF. So with all the funds that we have here is my message to everybody who is looking for more funding and who is asking what can we do? Get politically involved. It really depends on what the regions and the member states do with the money and they are the ones that program right now and how to use and how to spend this money that we are allocating from the European Union. In every instance there is somehow the possibility to use it for cultural purposes. It is rarely done because there is no interest or no knowledge of it on the ground on the issue where the people are working on in the regions. So this is the place where you need to get involved. You need to go to your regional department to your managing authority in your member state in your region and tell them now that you want support for the cultural sector. That you need either from this or that or that structural, social or whatever fund support for the creative sector and your project in the area. If that's written down, everybody in the area and in the region can apply for funding. If it's not written down, then it's not a possibility. So please get involved right now into the political process of programming those funds. And that's where I leave it away. Thank you very much indeed. Madame Farang, would you like to comment to what Ms. Nina said? Nina is absolutely right. In this time we are beginning the new regional fund programs and various possibilities to get money from the region and that's very important in policies. And I think culture has to be more local mostly in this time because you see you can't only have big national policies. We need local policies as well. And I followed from our region the different topic and I read this point there's not enough culture but you have the possibility and when I met a cultural actor I tell them the same thing that Nicolas said go and see your local politician responsible and ask them for that. That's a very huge opportunity for them. I absolutely agree. Thank you very much. I think I have my colleagues from the working group who perhaps also might raise or want to ask you a question. I see Evgenia and Thomas visible. I wonder if Elisabeth is there. I can't see the address. Who would like to start with the first question? Evgenia, yes please. Yes, hello and thank you both very much for joining us today for this concluding discussion. I would like to say that the reports of the cultural community I thought it was extremely thorough and comprehensive which is a great ground hopefully forbidding further policies in this direction and I also want to say I couldn't agree more with Nicolas Ninas about the agency of the cultural sector and the important role it can play. So my question is this is there a plan in the foreseeable future to expand the policy that has just been applied on Creative Europe and Erasmus Plus to other areas in the cultural policies of the EU and is there a way to bypass and expedite the change to bypass the reluctance of certain national governments in this respect? Difficult question. Who would like to take the answer? I'll give it a try at least. I don't know if there's a plan to increase the to increase the implementation on other cultural funds and for the question on how to comply with member states that are not working on the rules of Creative Europe for example. For example, from Poland where Poland doesn't pay up the needed fee, the additional fee that the member states needs to pay and therefore a lot of projects could not work out. This is tremendous horrible because I think that there's really the try to undermine liberal arts again and again from several perspectives. However, the possibility that you can do is to get involved with a different project because if the main project here is from a different country then this country has to pay up the main fee and you can run as a small participant project. I know this is not ideal but it is a way to still deliver on these issues. Very interesting. Thank you. It is difficult to intervene in the European policies but we have in the recovery plan we have this right of low conditionality that we are fighting for again and again it's more or less agreed but we have some discussion with tough countries as Hungary or Poland but our negotiators and all the parliaments are arguing not all but most of the MEP are fighting about that and my group is doing that. That's the first thing I wanted to say. The other one is that we can have as well transversal policies. You maybe have heard about this project of the European Commission that is called BAU project that is very clear so we have to make our work in the parliament about this topic but the idea is to achieve something with artists, creators all over the countries so maybe there is something to do to get a kind of European status for artists and this can bypass sometimes the problem with some kind of countries and the problem that we have. Thank you. Very interesting idea and creating a safe haven actually for our artists. I think we have got several messages sorry to close down but final words I thought you had to leave. Thank you. One issue I want to tackle in the upcoming term is the question of how funding is distributed. We know of several member states we know of several member states that are distributing funding only under certain rules that proceed their ideology. If you don't get funding you only get funding if you are compliant with the trigger words state, God, nation and if your project doesn't have anything to do with that or it's not in compliance with that it's critical with God or the state or the nation then you don't get any funding and this is something that we cannot accept that we cannot have possible in Europe because it diminishes the freedom of the arts and we don't get funding in Europe that ensures that we have a playing level field in every member state that everybody who is an artist can benefit of the freedom of the arts and therefore get funding for their project that all the funding is only based on quality and not on ideologic ideas of the government. Thank you very much. We will continue the discussion but we hope you find another moment many thanks to Mr. Nina and to my colleagues who have been helping us to make this I hope you will agree with us an interesting session this is only the start we see it as a process for the theater forum to continue the discussions with us in the coming weeks or months but in the meantime I also would like to sincerely thank you on behalf of the whole culture community for your immense efforts that you do to defend the culture sector to defend also a good support in funding we need it more than ever and we are very grateful for all the efforts that you take be sure of that and without further ado I think Gina is probably and Ian is probably taking over to tell the next step for this afternoon Thank you. And the discussion continues in the piano room actually if you want to have more exchange Thank you very much. Thank you very much for these very interesting last talks for the day we conclude this second day now we thank all the speakers we thank everyone for their attention of course we will meet back tomorrow at 9.15 for a day dedicated to European theaters as a public space and to international collaborations and to conclude of course together these three days of work in exchange. But until then I invite you to the theater we want to encourage everyone to join my colleagues for the 10th edition of the fast forward festival for young stage directors which starts today at 2.15 and will be happening of course online the link www.fastforward.art can be found on the European theater forums website please continue to use the forum platform to continue the interesting discussions on sustainability in the theater and performing arts sector in the piano room on the platform and the network among each other we will show fruitful meetings see you