"The European Union was born at the crossroads during the aftermath of a terrible war and while much has changed we still live in unpredictable times. The many challenges we’ve faced have remained or evolved and are now being fought with ideas and social media rather than with tanks and missiles, and we need to generate ideas with a new lens to best counteract today’s issues.” - André Wilkens, Director, European Cultural Foundation

Division and polarisation are threatening decades of peace and European cooperation. Inequality is eroding the fabric of our societies. Culture and identity are being misused to divide communities, and we seem to have forgotten why the European Union was created in the first place.

What can culture do? Tour and Amsterdam Manifesto for Europe

To better understand the challenges and opportunities Europe faces and what culture and philanthropy can do to address them, in early 2019, we organised a multi-European What Can Culture Do tour to listen and understand feedback from well over a dozen institutions. After analyzing and studying the feedback gained in collaboration with experts, we developed the Amsterdam Manifesto for Europe. Read the manifesto in Italian and French.

Strategy 2020-2025

The tour provided the input for ECF’s strategy for 2020-2025, which lays down the foundation for our focus and work for the next five years. Our activities will focus on three areas:

Share Europe: contributes to a European public space as a cultural sphere. It provides online and physical spaces where Europeans across national borders share ideas, experiences, artistic expression or news of European relevance.

Experience Europe: creates a European sense of belonging through cultural and educational exchange of people and practices. It provides tools for European exchanges between citizens and between cultural professionals beyond borders and sectors.  

Imagine Europe: supports initiatives that tell the stories of Europe, its heritage and its future, in the most compelling way using all forms of cultural expression.