A European Youth Culture Cheque to enhance young Europeans

access to culture
European Youth Plan background briefing

1. Why promoting culture in the framework of the PES Youth Plan?

Today, more than ever, our priority has to be the promotion of our common fundamental European
values of diversity, pluralism, solidarity and human rights. In this context, promoting universal access
to culture, and in particular for Europes youth is vital.

Culture is an invaluable source of wealth. Culture has a transformative power that can help promote
social cohesion and youth engagement, and it fosters critical thinking, creativity and the
understanding of the worlds complexity. Culture is a source of identity and cohesion for all societies.
Respecting and supporting cultural expressions contribute to strengthening the social capital of
communities and fosters trust in public institutions.1
In short, culture has the potential to strengthen active citizenship, supporting citizens that are active,
open-minded and critical members of society, which is the very essence of a liberal democracy.

This is why culture policies have to be an integral part of the PES Youth Plan to promote the social
integration and well-being of Europes youth and the continent at large. Therefore, in the spirit of the
recent announcement by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to invest one Euro in culture for every
euro spent on additional security measures, the PES Youth Plans culture pillar introduces the
concept of culture as a means to strengthen young peoples civic attitudes and self-development.2

In this context culture should be understood in a broad sense: from opera, orchestra, literature,
theatre and national heritage, over folkloric arts, music lessons, new forms of youth culture, but also
sports and volunteering work in culture organisations. In short: meaningful leisure time.

1http://en.unesco.org/post2015/sites/post2015/files/Think%20Piece%20Culture.pdf
2In this context culture should be understood in a broad sense: from opera, orchestra, literature, theatre and
national heritage, over folkloric arts, music lessons, new forms of youth culture, but also sports and
volunteering work in culture organisations. In short: meaningful leisure time.

www.pes.eu
Party of European Socialists
www.facebook.com/PES.PSE 10-12 Rue Guimard
B-1040 Brussels
www.twitter.com/PES_PSE
Belgium

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 2. Empower young people as culture consumers and creators

Culture policies in the framework of the PES Plan for European Youth shall aim at the empowerment
of individuals to better make use of their rights as culture consumers and creators by supporting
access to culture.

The flagship initiative of the PES Youth Plans culture pillar is a European program to (co-)finance a
European Youth Culture Cheque. This culture cheque would be a publicly financed voucher issued
to young people with a certain annual money value, co-financed by European funds, to be spent on
any cultural activity and/or to pay for membership and tuition fees in cultural organisations, sports
clubs or culture education programs, i.e. music lessons, of the card holders choice.

Such a measure would empower and support young people to autonomously choose the cultural
activity they would like to take part in.
These culture cheque would also support the two dimensions of culture participation: that of young
people as (passive) culture consumers, and that of (active) culture creators as the beneficiaries could
choose what kind of activity they would like the cheque to be used for.

3. Existing structures and funding

Creative Europe is the European Commissions framework program for support to the culture and
audiovisual sectors, with a volume of EUR 1.46 bn.

One of the programs priorities is to support audience development as a means to stimulate interest
in European cultural and audiovisual works.3 Audience development is mainly about support for
promotion and marketing activities of cultural organisations and artists to enhance their capacity to
reach out to a potential audience. However, there stronger emphasis should be put also on capacity
of the audience to get in contact with cultural organisations and acitivities, especially for the young,
which would be the objective of the Culture Cheque.

The PES therefore calls for the introduction of a specific priority on youth access to culture within the
Creative Europe program4. The introduction of this specific priority should go along with an increase
of the programs funding, specifically earmarked for culture access for youth through (co-)financing
of European Youth Culture Cheques.
If the EU wanted to support each of the approximately 1.83 million young people of the age of 18
years that is at risk of poverty and social exclusion in Europe with a Culture Cheque of EUR 100,
EUR 183 million annually, or EUR 732 for the remaining programs period 2017-2020, would be
needed5. This would mean a 50% increase of the Creative Europe programs financial volume.

3 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32013R1295&from=EN
4 EUROCITIES (2012): Eurocities statement on Creative Europe. Online:
http://www.eurocities.eu/eurocities/documents/EUROCITIES-STATEMENT-ON-CREATIVE-EUROPE-
WSPO-8T3HU8
5 Based on a rough estimation of the number of 18 year olds in the EU: 43 mio. people in the EU are aged

18-24. In this age group, 30% is at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

www.pes.eu
Party of European Socialists
www.facebook.com/PES.PSE 10-12 Rue Guimard
B-1040 Brussels
www.twitter.com/PES_PSE
Belgium

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 4. Governance

The Youth Culture Cheque program should be designed in a way it is compatible with existing
national, regional or local, private and public programs that enable young people discounts on
access to cultural activities.

Public authorities in the member states should be allowed to entitle youth organisations or other non-
profit organisations to issue culture cheques to young people and to inform them about the use.

www.pes.eu
Party of European Socialists
www.facebook.com/PES.PSE 10-12 Rue Guimard
B-1040 Brussels
www.twitter.com/PES_PSE
Belgium