Artists should be artists, not shop assistants

27.09.2021 10:26

Artists should be artists, not shop assistants

Artist playing music online

The EPP Group wants a fair distribution of income from digital platforms for artists, better financing of the cultural and creative industry and social security nets for people who work in it. The EU must be there to help European culture, which has not recovered from the COVID-19 economic crisis.

Christian Ehler MEP, the EPP Group’s Rapporteur for the Report on the situation of artists and the cultural recovery in the EU, which will be voted on this morning by the Culture and Education Committee, said: “With public performances out of the question, COVID-19 has completely transformed the daily reality of artists. Hit first, the hardest and for the longest time compared to almost all other sectors, workers in the cultural and creative industries need guarantees of fair income from digital platforms, where the art they create has moved to. We therefore want to put measures in place which will ensure that these revenues are fairly distributed to the creators and to the right-holders.”

Michaela Šojdrová MEP, who drafted the EPP Group’s Position Paper on Culture, added: “Only last year, the cultural and creative sectors lost almost €200 billion in turnover. The EU must now combine available funding from European Structural and Investment Funds to preserve our European cultural heritage and allow artists to leave jobs in supermarkets to get back to performing art.”

The pandemic has also exposed the lack of any support nets for artists who do not fit into a category of a standard contractual worker. Christian Ehler urged: “Almost 8 million workers from the industry largely important for our social lives and economy must not end up being excluded from unemployment benefits or pension schemes. We therefore need a common European framework for working conditions in the cultural and creative sectors, making social security available for them.”

Note to editors

The EPP Group is the largest political group in the European Parliament with 179 Members from all EU Member States

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