Special treatment of culture "makes sense," European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso has said in relation to upcoming EU-US trade talks. Speaking at the European Business Summit in Brussels on Thursday (16 May ...

The EU is planning new legislation on collective management of copyrights. One of the central issues is how fair pay for artists can be guaranteed in this digital age. More specifically, it is about finding a balanced ...

The question of copyrights and the music industry was already old and vexed. The digital age, with the advent of millions of songs accessible at the click of a mouse, has added an extra layer. MEPs in the European ...

Public sector support for culture is being threatened by Europe’s current economic woes, says a pro-art advocacy network. "We cannot but face the fact that we are in the midst of generalised crisis of extreme fragility ...

The European Commission has said that Poland's prosecution of a rock group for "blasphemy" is against European values. It said on Wednesday (31 October) in a written statement for EUobserver that "national blasphemy ...

Compared to people from other parts of Europe, Scandinavians are the most inclined to spend their time and money on culture. The Danes are the biggest spenders. Some 5.5 percent of everything they spend goes into books, ...

Faced with a continued fall in ticket sales, cultural institutions in Europe should be looking for ways to reach new audiences and for new ways to reach restless existing audiences. “A change of paradigm is occurring,” ...

At some point in early 2012, Pablo Lag stood in front of an abandoned, half-constructed house in the centre of Alicante, Spain, and kicked in the door. "The space had been under construction for years," he said. "I mean ...

The EU today spends little more than 0.1 percent of what it has on subsidies for the arts - some €170 million per year. It is less than what Estonia spends on culture. And yet, over the first half of the last decade, ...

When EU leaders meet in Brussels in November for what is expected to be long round of hard negotiations on the bloc’s new seven-year budget, culture will not be on everyone’s mind. Allowed only “to support, coordinate ...

The European Commission announced in March 2011 its intention to address the gross imbalance of women and men on corporate boards in Europe. A year and a half later, internal disagreement within the 27 member college of ...

With a little imagination and some creative interpretation of guidelines on how to spend EU aid, some cities and regions are pulling themselves up by the bootstraps and turning themselves into cultural - and money- ...

The creative industries and culture sector are a “largely untapped resource” in the European economy, according to a paper released on Wednesday (26 September) by the European Commission. “The contribution that cultural ...

Figures show that European viewers were more interested in watching the London Olympic Games than the previous ones, held in Beijing in 2008. The Geneva-based trade body, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which ...

National governments and the EU should maintain state funding for the arts rather than leave it in the hands of the market said EU culture commissioner Androulla Vassiliou on Monday (13 August). Vassiliou was speaking ...

EU institutions do not do God. But for some religious leaders in EU-aspirant countries, member states' Christian origins are still important. The morning call to prayer at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul means different ...

Music is everywhere, and the digital age has only increased its presence. Today, (11 July) I am proposing a modernised system of collective rights management that will use the single market – the EU's most powerful ...

The EU is moving towards a system of common copyright rules after a deal on so-called "orphan works" was reached by MEPs and ministers on Wednesday (6 June). "Orphan works" include photos, films or pieces of writing ...

With the summertime pride march season approaching, EUobserver looks at just how progressive European countries really are on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual and intersex (LGBTI) people.

Ambitious plans to create the EU's largest ever cultural funding programme are a step closer to reality after ministers offered broad support for the European Commission's Creative Europe programme at a meeting in ...

Belgium and the Monarchy: From National Independence to National Disintegration. By Herman Van Goethem and translated by Ian Connerty. University Press Antwerp (UPA); 295 pages; €27.83 (excl. VAT and shipping) at ...

EU justice commissioner Vivianne Reding is to boycott the Euro2012 football championships in Ukraine for political reasons, amid reports the German Chancellor might do the same. Reding spokeswoman Mina Andreeva told ...

Film directors and screenwriters should be guaranteed minimum intellectual property rights by EU law, according to a group of leading trade organisations representing authors. In a joint statement issued Tuesday (10 ...

The battle for the future of the music publishing industry is set to run until the summer after the European Commission revealed its plan to delay judgment on the take-over of British music publishing giant EMI until ...

There has been a great deal of rumour and speculation surrounding Acta and it is unfortunate that the media increases these rumours and misinformation. The title of your article is clearly misleading and gives the ...

Underground culture is flourishing in the heart of Belarus despite regime attempts to establish control. In public, the residents of Minsk consume a cocktail of Western pop culture and lumbering propaganda: concert ...

The European Commission on Wednesday (14 March) launched plans to re-writer EU rules on state aid for cinema this year. Member States across the EU provide around €3bn per year in support for film production, with the ...

Serious human rights violations in Azerbaijan have harmed the image of Europe's yearly festival of camp pop - Eurovision. If Irish twins Jedward or French singer Anggun make finals in Baku in May to sing lines such as " ...

Two and a half million people signed a petition this week urging the European Parliament to say 'no' to the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement, Acta. The multinational treaty - which among other things aims to protect ...

Portuguese city Guimaraes launched the start of its year as European Capital of Culture (ECOC) on Saturday (21 January) against a backdrop of budget cuts which threaten to derail the success of the event. The city ...