EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Brussels,30.5.2018

SWD(2018) 290 final

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT

IMPACT ASSESSMENT

Accompanying the document

Proposal for a Regulation establishing the Rights and Values programme
Proposal for a Regulation establishing the Justice programme
Proposal for a Regulation establishing the Creative Europe programme

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{COM(2018) 384 final}
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{SEC(2018) 274 final}

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Table of Contents

1.    Introduction: Political and legal context    

1.1.    Scope and context    

1.2.    Lessons learned from previous programmes    

1.2.1.    Lessons learned on strategies and priorities    

1.2.2.    Lessons learned on possible synergies    

1.2.3.    Lessons learned on delivery mechanisms    

1.2.4.    Lessons learned on monitoring    

2.    The Objectives    

2.1.    Challenges for the programmes of the next MFF    

2.1.1.    Common policy challenges: the added value of EU-level action on values and the subsidiarity principle    

2.1.2.    Challenges in terms of flexibility and simplification: towards a new architecture, delivery mode and monitoring system of future programmes    

2.2.    Objectives of the programmes of the next MFF    

2.2.1.    The aim of the initiative    

2.2.2.    The specific objectives of the future funding programmes    

3.    Programme structure and priorities    

3.1.1.    Key features of the current funding programmes: the baseline scenario    

3.1.2.    Alternative to the baseline scenario: a EU values framework with two funding programmes    

3.1.3.    Discarded alternative: one programme    

3.2.    Priorities    

3.3.    Synergies with other funding programmes    

3.3.1.    Synergies with the other programmes under the future "Investing in people and EU values" framework    

3.3.2.    Synergies with the "External Action" cluster of the budget     34

3.3.3.    Synergies with the Single Market Programmes    

3.3.4.    Synergies with budget cluster on Strategic Infrastructure    

3.3.5.    Synergies with Border management and security    

4.    Delivery mechanisms of the intended funding    

4.1.    Implementation mode    

4.2.    Type of expenditure    

4.3.    Alignment with recent changes in the Financial Regulation    39

5.    How will performance be monitored and evaluated?    39

Glossary

1.Introduction: Political and legal context

"Our values are our compass. For me, Europe is more than just a single market. More than money, more than a currency, more than the euro. It has always been about values." - President Juncker, State of the Union speech, September 2017

"Values cannot be imposed, they must be passed on and embraced across generations and communities, and we need to find concrete ways to achieve this". - FVP F. Timmermans, June 2016

The European Union is a community of law and its values constitute the very basis of its existence I . EU values are enshrined in the EU Treaty of the EU which in art 2 states that "the Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom democracy, equality, the rule of law and the respect for human rights, including the rights of the persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society where pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail". Art 3 further specifies that the "Union's aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its people" and, among others, "it shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and shall ensure that Europe's cultural heritage is safeguarded and enhanced". Along these lines, the Commission's reflection paper on the future of EU finances states that "the EU budget supports this aim, working together with national budgets and complementing other efforts at European and national level". EU finances can provide value added in upholding common European values, such as democracy, freedom, the rule of law, fundamental rights, equality, solidarity, sustainability and peace. Learning and exchanging on cultures of different Member States is also highlighted as being a key factor to build bonds across Europe. European values such as peace, democracy, rule of law, are indicated as key criteria to identify the added value that justify EU level financing in the same way as of Treaty objectives and obligations or public goods with a European dimension.

The importance of achieving a Union that caters for the cultural and social development of its citizens has been further underlined in spring 2017, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the signature of the Treaty of Rome by the leaders of 27 Member States and of the EU institutions. This objective was restated at the Gothenborg Summit in November 2017, which concluded that it is "in the shared interest of all Member States to harness the full potential of education and culture as drivers for jobs, social fairness, active citizenship as well as a means to experience European identity in all its diversity". In particular, the Commission announced that it would strengthen the Creative and Cultural Sectors Guarantee Facility and that it would also launch a #Digital4Culture strategy to help increase access of citizens to culture by exploiting digital technologies. The European Pillar of Social Rights, jointly proclaimed by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on 17 November 2017, reflects the unanimous support by all EU institutions and the Member States on the principles and rights of the Pillar, including gender equality, equal opportunities, support to children or inclusion of people with disabilities. In addition, the European institutions have stressed in a number of occasions the importance to develop and support the policies covered by the EU values framework as indicated in annex 6.

In line with the reflection paper, this IA takes a fresh look at a number of funding programmes and budget lines which have in common the fact of providing an important contribution to upholding EU values through the support of rights, equality, citizenship, cultural diversity and the creativity sector. The aim is to simplify and streamline funding, to develop synergies among current programmes - including in the citizenship area which has been identified as clear case for merging - to ensure clear focus on European added value and to reach a critical mass of funding to promote and protect EU common values and to deliver tangible results to the EU citizens. In doing so, the funding dedicated to values will also reinforce the EU role as a champion in the promotion and protection of values and rights at global level. In this respect, it will contribute directly to the achievement of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with direct linkages to SDG 4 on quality education, SDG 5 on gender equality, SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth, SDG 10 on reduced inequalities, SDG 16 on Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. It will also contribute to enhance a rights based-approach to policies making which the EU is promoting across the globe.

1.1.Scope and context

The European Union is based on a community of values shared by all its citizens, and rooted in Europe's history, democratic principles and identity, enshrined in the EU Treaty, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the UNESCO convention on the protection of the Diversity of cultural expressions, which is part of the acquis communautaire. Those values encompass non-discrimination and equality, anti-racism and tolerance, rule of law and independence of the judiciary. They also encompass cultural diversity, freedom of expression, including media freedom, pluralism, and citizens' participation as well as artistic freedom II . Our creations forming our common cultural heritage and cultural and linguistic diversity at all levels (national, regional, local) reflect and highlight the importance of artistic and creative freedom in Europe and make an important contribution to the fight against all forms of discrimination including racism and xenophobia and are at the heart of the EU project and of the EU identity There is now evidence that when people have wide access to culture (physically or through digital means) and are actively engaged in cultural activities, they are more likely to understand and adopt shared common values. In order to be able to play this inclusive role for Europe's society at large, the cultural and creative sectors need to be robust and competitive and artistic creations and cultural contents are to be circulated within Europe and beyond. Therefore, the preservation of cultural values and diversity requires strengthening the growth potential and competitiveness of Europe's cultural and creative sectors to ensure their capacity to reach citizens from across the EU, notably in the context of an increasingly integrated Digital Single Market.

To promote common European values, rights, culture, creativity and identity, the EU has used several instruments combined in a policy mix: the funding programmes under examination in this Impact Assessment are one of those instruments, together with legislation and policy development and implementation. In the current financial perspective 2014-2020 EU-funding in this area is provided through the programmes and individual budget lines (hereafter the "existing programmes") summarised in the following table:

Table 1: Main characteristics of the current programmes

(*) It should be noted that the multimedia actions line is not covered pending decision on its future by the political level.

Figure 1: Total financial 2014-2020 envelope for the current programmes

In an EU-institutional framework largely based on subsidiarity, existing funding programmes (2014-2020) have demonstrated their European added value. As evidenced by the recent mid-term evaluations, this European approach through financing co-operation projects and cross-border initiatives is hardly ever supported outside EU funding programmes. There is scope to further increase this added value by bringing several of those instruments under a single framework whose focus should be the promotion and protection of values. In addition to the political guidance described above, the creation of a EU values framework in the EU budget is justified also on the following grounds:

·All the programmes and actions that are candidates to be part of the EU values framework have a strong societal focus and are clearly related to European values. By supporting rights, values, justice, culture, artistic and creative freedom, the EU exchanges meaningful and relevant messages with European citizens, thus contributing to European social well-being.

·At the same time, the programmes have also a positive impact on the economy by supporting for instance gender equality and anti-discrimination policies and promoting equal access to the labour market for all, or by supporting creation, promotion and circulation of cultural goods and access to cultural services as well as the competitiveness of Europe's cultural and creative industries.

·They have helped shape a common European identity by supporting societal policies, which underpin and further strengthen economic and market values and policies of the EU.

·They lend themselves to the integration into a single framework as they all deal with values and citizenship issues leading to a more coordinated approach in this field.

·They have not yet achieved their current objectives, which are still relevant and closely interlinked to each other.

·They are small instruments, which have not yet reached critical mass and whose effectiveness is constrained by their relatively low budgets. Therefore, their joining under one framework would help increase their effectiveness through synergies and mutual reinforcement.

1.2.Lessons learned from previous programmes

Thanks to the implementation of EU legislation, policy measures and funding, some progress is visible in the promotion and protection of rights and values. Examples are increased awareness among people about their rights, their common history, increased female employment rate, promotion and protection of the rights of the children, enhanced democratic and civic participation of citizens at Union level but also a deeper understanding of and respect for different cultures, traditions and artistic expressions.

As a result of EU legislation people can rely on a set of rights all across the EU and can count on an independent and effective justice system and the respect of the rule of law. On numerous past occasions, the European Parliament showed its firm commitment to combat violence against women and children through a strong and well-funded DAPHNE programme/objective and to the other objectives covered by the REC Programme (such as gender equality, LGBTI and others) IV . By becoming a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2011, the EU committed to promoting and protecting the rights of persons with disabilities V .

Collaborative cultural projects have helped to reinforce mutual understanding and tolerance through their potential of reaching out European citizens across national borders. Support to the culture and creative sectors has helped them to become well established in the economic and policy contexts as important assets in strengthening Europe’s economic structure, maintaining its competitiveness in the global economy – in particular in the field of audiovisual – reinforcing the mutual understanding among people from different cultural backgrounds, preventing radicalization and safeguarding of EU values.

In preparation of the proposals for the new generation of funding programmes the results of the current and predecessor programmes were evaluated. The mid-term evaluation of the Creative Europe and Europe for Citizens programmes are available in their final version while the mid-term evaluation of the REC and Justice programmes will be available by end of June 2018. Nevertheless, the external evaluation should be available by end of May 2018. The mid-term evaluation of creative Europe programme covers the implementation of the Creative Europe programme, its predecessor programmes and all their sub-programmes. Key stakeholders have also been consulted (details available in the annex 2).

The following analysis is based on these evaluations and consultations unless differently indicated.

All the evaluated programmes have shown clear EU added value and evaluations show that they are still relevant in the current and post-2020 scenarios.

In particular, the REC programme has shown a high added value as in absence of EU funding the projects carried out would not have taken place, due to lack of resources at national level. Interventions funded are seen as generating better results and more benefits than those funded through national/local interventions, mainly because their transnational dimension, the higher flexibility, and their higher quality and innovation as compared to projects funded at the national level.

The Europe for Citizens Programme has demonstrated its added value at EU level both in its impact on participants and its role as a complement to other EU funding programmes and policy initiatives in the field of education, culture and EU citizenship. Activities such as remembrance activities, town-twinning or pan-European networks are intended to broaden perspectives and to develop a sense of European belonging and European identity.

The experience of the Creative Europe Programme and the findings of its mid-term evaluation confirm the necessity to continue providing European added value by supporting the cross-border collaboration and partnerships between European cultural and creative operators and the circulation of works. Support at the European level adds value through economies of scale, sustainability, and synergies that cannot be replicated through the national, regional or local levels.

The evaluations also analysed factors that hindered the possibility for the programmes to be effective and efficient to their full extent and identified areas for improvement and simplification.

While details on specific evaluations are available in annex 3, in the following sections, the lessons learned from previous programmes are grouped in four main categories according to their possible impacts on respectively:

·strategies and priorities

·possible synergies

·delivery mechanisms

·monitoring

1.2.1.Lessons learned on strategies and priorities 

The problems and drivers underlying their general and specific objectives are still relevant. The intervention strategies of the Programmes are still adequate to achieving the desired objectives and still relevant to the needs of the beneficiaries. However some new priorities emerged and improvement could be made in specific areas of the programmes. In particular:

·Within the Specific Objectives of the REC programme “Prevent and Combat all Forms of Violence”, there is room for enhancing the focus on emerging needs such as e-violence. Setting the specific objectives at the level of the policy field (i.e. promoting gender equality, anti-discrimination etc.) as well as the architecture of the programme has increased the flexibility of the programme to focus on specific priorities and re-adjust actions to adapt to emerging issues during the implementation.

·Creative Europe has contributed to delivering the EU policy agenda, stimulating investment and job creation (3000 jobs created over 2014-16) and deepening the internal market especially through greater circulation of creative content (400 films circulated per year) and most supported activities would have been significantly reduced without Creative Europe support VI . Yet the mid-term evaluation shows that these results could have been much larger with more funding. As an example, during the period 2014-2017 only 13, 96% of the projects submitted under the cooperative strand were funded. Indeed, success rates have dropped, meaning that many good projects cannot be funded VII . Furthermore, a more flexible definition of support actions would also enable the programme to support innovative, cross-cutting content not only in terms of technology (e.g. virtual reality, transmedia, web-series) but also in terms of social and artistic innovation (e.g. grass-root events, cooperation between organizations from various sectors) as well as new business models e.g. online first release strategies. Feedback from stakeholders calls more for an evolution than a revolution on the architecture of the future programme VIII . This finding was supported by the report on the Creative Europe issued by the European Parliament in 2016 IX

·The MEDIA sub-programme has grown in scope over the years without an equivalent increase in budget. Thus the funding is spread too thinly across many priorities, weakening its potential impact. In 2017, a budget of approx. €110 million was distributed to over 2000 projects. The sub-programme is also fragmented as it is structured around 14 schemes which target specific parts of the industry’s value chain. Collaboration across silos and across borders could be encouraged more, in particular to develop stronger pan-European distribution strategies X and visibility of European works in Europe and abroad. European VOD services need to scale up at European level, as they currently operate only at national or regional level XI . In its 2016 study on MEDIA XII , the European Parliament concluded that MEDIA was effective so far but was hampered by its limited budget.

·The Creative Europe's Culture sub-programme has also grown in scope over the years without an equivalent increase in budget whereas there is increased awareness and evidence of the contribution of the cultural and creative sectors to society and the economy (two thirds of the respondents to an open public consultation launched during the mid-term evaluation of Creative Europe Programme believed that the results of the Culture Sub-programme could not have been achieved using less funding ).. It also appears that with its strong focus on co-operation and partnership, the sub-programme does not cover the needs of some essential cultural and creative industries such as the music sector, the book sector or architecture which need intervention at specific points of the value chain. Despite its openness to participation of organizations from third countries, activities outside Europe or of non-EU nationals in Creative Europe are currently limited which hampers the presence and visibility of European cultural and creative contents beyond its own borders XIII . Overall, around 90% of the respondents to the above-mentioned public consultation believe that most priorities of the Culture Sub-programme are still relevant or extremely relevant . Political priorities such as the People-to-People Dialogue with China or deepening relations with Japan cannot be implemented lacking an earmarked budget.

·The guarantee facility in the cross-sectorial strand of Creative Europe responds directly to the needs of cultural and creative SMEs, which have difficulties accessing loans due to the intangible nature of their assets. The strong market response to its launch in 2016 shows the relevance of this instrument to the needs of the market: as of Q3 2017, 161 SMEs received loans for a total value of € 32 million, for over 200 projects employing more than 900 people. A top-up of € 60 million, equivalent to 50% of the total budget, was provided already in 2017 allowing a quicker deployment of guarantee support, reaching more countries and sectors and enhancing the geographic and sectoral balance.

·In some areas targeted by the Justice programme, the basin of potential recipients of the actions could be expanded such as in the field of Judicial Training, where stakeholders from national administrative bodies and regulatory agencies could be included in a more systematic way.

·Regarding the Europe for Citizens programme, the evaluations and studies of the past 10 years showed that the programme has played an important role as the only EU programme targeting citizens directly and involving them through a bottom-up approach. In its March 2017 report on the implementation of the Europe for Citizens programme (2014-2020) XIV , the European Parliament expressed its strong support for the programme, including a substantial budgetary increase.

·The audiovisual prerogative lines and actions related to audiovisual policy (e.g., on media freedom, quality journalism and media literacy) and the AVMSD implementation have been an invaluable tool in the creation of values, enhancing a more participatory citizenship and better democracies. However actions in this area have relied on EP support through pilot schemes. The lack of a structured access to funding is a clear barrier to deliver on emerging threats, such as the impact of disinformation and fake news. This is all the more serious considering that media initiatives could play a key role in supporting democracy across the EU.

1.2.2.Lessons learned on possible synergies

As indicated in the Commission's reflection paper, the policy field of citizenship is a good candidate to develop synergies among current funding programmes.

The Europe for Citizens Programme has demonstrated its added value at EU level both in its impact on participants and its role as a complement to other EU funding programmes and policy initiatives in the field of education, culture and EU citizenship. Activities such as remembrance activities, town-twinning or pan-European networks are intended to broaden perspectives and to develop a sense of European belonging and European identity. Synergies with other relevant EU funding programmes, in particular those analysed in this Impact Assessment, could be strengthened through reinforced thematic cooperation, for example in the area of anti-racism, equality, cultural heritage, historical memory and cultural diversity where it would be possible to develop common activities, like for example peer learning or common stakeholder conferences. The box hereafter provides some concrete example of possible synergies, also beyond the citizenship area.

The respondents to the open public consultation, with experience in one or more of the four EU Programmes, agree that "better coordination between different programmes/funds" is one of the main steps to be taken to simplify and reduce the administrative burdens for beneficiaries.

1.2.3.Lessons learned on delivery mechanisms

Delivery mechanisms have in general proved adequate to pursue the objectives of the programmes. In particular, the streamlined structure of the Europe for Citizens programme XV and the introduction of multi-annual thematic priorities have allowed for a more focused approach. The application and reporting process have considerably been simplified through the use of lump sums and the introduction of electronic application and reporting forms. However, comparing the different experiences of the current programmes evidences significant room for improvement in some areas.

As regards the REC and the Justice programmes:

·The duration of Operating Grants could be extended to cover at least two years (instead of one), in order to reduce the administrative burden – in terms of both applying and reporting – on beneficiaries and Commission services alike.

·The introduction of standard unit costs, at least for some typologies of activities (e.g. training), could significantly reduce administrative and accounting duties on beneficiaries and on Commission services involved in management and control.

As regards Creative Europe, the large volume of small grants has the advantage of supporting many small beneficiaries and activities. However, it also creates high administrative costs with time and effort focused on processing calls for proposals and transactions XVI . Less time is available for collecting data on the programme, monitoring project results and ensuring visibility of EU support. Therefore, delivery mechanisms need to be designed to streamline support and group beneficiaries while keeping an open door to the participation of all cultural and creative structures, whatever their size. Furthermore, incentives could be introduced through modalities which reward success in meeting performance criteria, in order to increase the focus on policy objectives XVII .

Finally, the programme's visibility could be increased in particular as regards Europe for Citizens and the Justice programme. In this last one, there is a need to further improve communication activities, also with a view to foster participation from organisations in Member States with relatively low participation rates. Dissemination could equally be enhanced through mutual collaboration between funded projects.

1.2.4.Lessons learned on monitoring

The revision of the monitoring indicators has been identified as an area for improvement in particular for Europe for citizens, the REC and the Justice programmes. It seems particularly important to develop workable indicators allowing for precise monitoring of the quality and the impact of projects.

The system of indicators for the REC could be streamlined and strengthened so as to meaningfully capture the expected results of the Programme. Data quality should be better taken in consideration as regards the Justice indicators.

Regarding Creative Europe, the absence of performance indicators sufficiently robust and linked to the activities of the Programme has not allowed a systematic analysis and reporting of the results and impacts XVIII . A proposal to be adopted by a Delegated Act to strengthen the monitoring framework systems, processes and indicators for the current Programme during the 2nd quarter of 2018 is being prepared.

2.The Objectives 

This chapter presents an analysis of the challenges currently faced by the EU in the Values area as well as the added value of acting at EU level. Taking into account the current funding programmes as baseline scenario, the drivers upon which the Commission can act to tackle those challenges are then identified and regrouped according to the impact they might have on a) the priorities and architecture of the future programmes, b) the delivery mechanisms and c) the monitoring system. On this basis, the objectives of the future funding will be defined as well as the architecture and priorities of the future programmes that will be further detailed in chapter 3.

2.1.Challenges for the programmes of the next MFF 

2.1.1.Common policy challenges: the added value of EU-level action on values and the subsidiarity principle

Despite the progress achieved by the current programmes, several gaps persist in the concerned policy areas, while at the same time there are also new challenges that need to be tackled.

The common challenges faced by the EU in the area of values are twofold:

·Our vocation to build a strong internal market but at the same time also a community based on a common cultural bond, shared values, rights, historical and cultural heritage and people's involvement is hampered by the tendency to focus on our differences and not what unites us. Populist, extremist and nationalist movements challenging the idea of our open inclusive, cohesive and democratic society where cultural participation and capability based on education allow for the building of a more resilient way of living together.

·The fragmented nature and limited resources of EU current funding programmes dedicated to values, rights, citizenship, culture and media limits the capacity of the EU to respond to old and new challenges. This is particularly true in the context of the digital shift, which has had the effect of increasing even more the competition from US players in European audiovisual and cultural markets, with tangible negative effects on Europe's cultural diversity. Digitalisation of national justice systems, civic technology, robotics, registers and legal technology also imply increased needs to accompany the technological developments in national administrations. "Lack of budget of the programmes to satisfy demand" has been identified by the respondents to the public consultation as the main obstacles that could prevent the current programmes from achieving their objectives.

The consequences of not addressing this double challenge could be very high if confidence in European institutions and values is eroded. The quality of our democracy would be weakened and there are already alarming signals, knowing for example that today only half of young Europeans regard democracy as the best form of government. Discrimination may be amplified by the misuse of online networks, whilst citizens are less confident in exercising their rights XIX . Public opinion could become increasingly inward looking and locked into national media and cultural "bubbles" under deteriorating indicators of media freedom and pluralism. This would also affect negatively the development of a sense of European cultural identity. Europe's image on the world stage would also be weakened, at a time when other global players are building up their soft power through culture.

Although most of the challenges and problems are common to all areas covered, hereafter they are grouped according to their predominant factors:

European values are insufficiently shared and rights are still not fully enjoyed by people. In particular:

·The European values on which the EU political (collective) and citizens' identity is based are still not perceived by EU citizens as being the basis of EU project: as an example, for three out of four young Europeans, the reason behind the EU is not shared values, but rather economic cooperation. XX . According to the respondents of the open public consultation, "Promote European identity and common values" as well as "promote rights and equality" are important common policy challenges (being one of the four first challenges mentioned) to be addressed in each of the four programmes.

·The rights stemming from the EU citizenship - on free movement, consular protection and electoral rights XXI – are still not fully known XXII and implemented, thus hindering citizens' political and societal participation XXIII .

·The access and understanding by EU citizens of truly European cultural forms of expression, transmitting EU values, is being challenged by the overwhelming presence of non-European, in particular US, cultural goods and services in many EU countries.

·The opportunities provided by new forms of communication to receive, consume, share information and engage in social and civic life are not sufficiently exploited. In addition, these opportunities are also accompanied by threats such as digital exclusion, decreasing trust in media, the propagation of fake news, the misuse of personal data, hate speech, decreasing media literacy and the manipulation of information networks.

·As a result of economic crises, growing inequalities and perceived threats of migrations, nationalism, populism, Euro-scepticism and intolerance gained a ground to advocate exclusion and isolationism as the only way to overcome the current challenges. Fundamental rights and the values on which the European Union is founded are put to the test and in some cases the rule of law, access to justice, space for civil society and the independence of the judiciary and media freedom are challenged, putting into question the same concept of democracy. Citizens' sense of belonging to and engagement in the EU project are also undermined.

·Data show that discrimination against LGBTI people XXIV , Roma XXV ,, persons with disabilities XXVI , elderly people or, on the ground of religion, XXVII as well as violence against women XXVIII and children, in the society and in the labour market, still persist; racism, xenophobia and hate speech are often amplified by the use of social network and new technologies; sensitive social and societal issues related to religion and beliefs are rising up in parallel. Significant gender inequalities persist XXIX .

·Judicial cooperation and law enforcement in civil and criminal matters is insufficient and access to justice across Member States is still difficult. Tools for collecting comparative information about the quality, independence and efficiency of Member States justice systems need to be improved. A main obstacle to mutual recognition and judicial cooperation is the lack of trust in the judicial systems of other Member States XXX .

Europe's cultural diversity depends on resilient and robust cultural and creative sectors. However those sectors, notably the audiovisual XXXI or music sector, are facing a number of challenges, as a result of the increased competition from global players and the digital shift. In particular:

·European cultural diversity and richness and the sustainability of the Culture and Creative Sectors (CCS) are challenged by digitization and globalization and their powerful impact on the way artists produce and distribute their works and relate to their audiences. The collapse of DVD markets, new consumer expectations and the continued power of US studios XXXII together with the rise of global digital giants like Amazon, Itunes, Google and Netflix have impacted the traditional value chain. Producers, distributors, broadcasters, cinema theatres and all types of cultural organizations need to innovate in order to attract new generations of audiences XXXIII .

·The quality of Europe's audiovisual industry is internationally recognized but it is not competitive enough within the Digital Single Market.

·The EU produces over 1700 films per year against 800 for the US as well as over 900 TV fiction titles per year (over 400 for US). However, the EU does not make the most of this production volume, due to the lack of international distribution. In cinema and theatres EU films are released on average in 2.6 countries vs. 9.7 countries for US films. In TVOD, EU films are released on average in 2.8 countries vs. 6.8 countries for US films. In particular, VOD is growing fast. However, the share of EU films on TVOD (19%) is lower than in cinemas (31%) whilst only 47% of EU films released in cinemas make it to VOD. The average audience share of non-national European films in cinemas remains at 7% also due to a lack of resources to promote films. On average, marketing expenses represent 50% of the production costs of US films against, for example, 10% for French films. To bring the marketing of EU films at a par with US films, € 1.6 bn, based on a limited number of countries for which we have data (DE, DK, FI, FR, GB, IT, NL, SE, SI) would be needed. European films only benefit from 22% of promotion spots in VOD. Also, only 20% of European films are co-productions whereas they are more successful than national films, generating 50% of cinema attendance. Also, audiovisual professionals, in particular from lower capacity countries, need to strengthen their capacity to operate at the European level XXXIV .

· In the audiovisual field, the AVMSD is being adapted to ensure a level playing field. The new AVMS Directive will set-up an objective of 30% of European works available on VOD. This will be an opportunity for European works, but accompanying measures are needed to help make European non-national works available, specifically in low producing countries.

The policy challenges identified in the previous sections are common to all EU Member States and have cross-border dimensions. Indeed, while action at national level is important, the single Member States do not have enough leverage to tackle these challenges. In that respect action at EU level is needed following the subsidiarity principle, which is analysed in the next table.

2.1.2.Challenges in terms of flexibility and simplification: towards a new architecture, delivery mode and monitoring system of future programmes

The EU can tackle the common challenges described in the section above by acting on different drivers that can lead to the redefinition of the architecture of the EU values framework and its underlying programmes, their priorities, their delivery modes, and their monitoring systems. This is expected to improve synergies between current programmes, simplify them and increase their performance, coherence, efficiency and effectiveness. These elements are detailed hereafter.

Drivers affecting the priorities and architecture of the future programmes

·Available mid-term evaluations confirmed that the contents of current funding programmes are still highly relevant to respond to the needs they were designed to address and confirming the importance of their impact for the target groups. They confirmed the need for funding in the respective areas and acknowledged that the funded activities contribute towards the achievement of the foreseen objectives. In terms of scope, some recommendations were made, but without putting in doubt the need for the continuation of funding XXXVI .

·A critical mass of funds needs to be dedicated to the promotion of Values to make a difference in peoples' lives and close the funding gaps we currently have in many of the policies covered. Mid-term evaluation showed in particular that there is a lack of adequate funding to scale-up efforts in the field of values which become important in some specific areas, such as audiovisual XXXVII , culture XXXVIII or citizenship. 

·The full potential of culture needs to be exploited as drivers for jobs, social fairness, active citizenship as well as a means to experience European identity in all its diversity in a context of rapid and profound changes induced by the technological revolution and globalization.

·The existence of several small-scale funding programmes and prerogative lines and actions managed through EP preparatory actions in this area does not support flexibility but rather presents a fragmented approach. The MEDIA sub-programme is itself fragmented into 14 separate schemes which limits flexibility in the design of support actions. Each programme focuses only on a specific policy area, setting small-scale scope for its activities. Horizontal and cross-cutting issues cannot be addressed in a comprehensive way. As indicated in previous sections, part of the activities funded by the current programmes, prerogative actions and EP preparatory actions would benefit from being more coordinated under the same intervention logic.

·There is a lack of flexibility to respond to emerging opportunities and challenges, in particular those coming from the digital disruption of the audiovisual, music and information industries, which has challenged existing distribution channels and led to an explosion of user generated content and new audience patterns XXXIX . In the field of news media, guaranteeing an access to quality content, including by countering the global impact of fake news, remains important.

·The CCS, in particular the audio-visual XL and music sectors, need to scale up in order to be competitive at European level, where there is fierce competition from global players. Furthermore it is still a challenge for cultural and creative professionals to go beyond their national or linguistic borders, resulting in sub-optimal circulation of cultural works and limited choice for citizens.

·Access to finance remains a key constraint to the development of cultural and creative SMEs. Their value is based on intangible assets, making it harder for financial intermediaries to assess risk and ensure collateral. The financing gap is estimated at € 7 billion for 2014-2020 XLI .

Drivers affecting delivery mechanisms

·Potential synergies between programmes dealing with values, rights, culture, creativity, and audiovisual have not been exploited also leading g to the risk of overlaps. We currently observe a loss of potentially innovative projects of a more cross-sectoral nature as they do not fit into the tight frame of one of the existing programme. This is the case for instance for projects which would promote new forms of culture at the crossroads between different creative sectors, through the use of digital means or project that support cross-over initiatives between culture and fundamental rights or audio-visual and non-discrimination policies (e.g. a slate of films promoting specifically European values), "Facilitating funding for actions cutting across the sectors of action" has been identified by the respondents to the open public consultation as one of the main steps to be taken to simplify and reduce the administrative burdens for beneficiaries. Also, where the programmes overlap, notably on citizenship issues, beneficiaries can submit similar funding applications under several programmes or choose the programme not based on thematic relevance, but on the average success-rate under a given programme. There is a certain degree of overlap of similar structures in different programmes (i.e. national contact points)

·Insufficient or limited scale dissemination and use of the results and outputs of the funded activities do not allow for broader public awareness and enhanced complementarity of funded actions XLII .

·Support activities for media freedom, quality journalism and media literacy which are increasingly relevant in the context of the growing phenomenon of misinformation (fake news) and its impact in political elections have been developed through isolated pilot schemes without a proper comprehensive strategy and are insufficient to close the gap between citizens and the institutions at large.

·Low success rate in projects applications in certain areas such as Daphné, Creative Europe XLIII or Europe for Citizens due to limited resource availability generates frustration and demotivation among applicants.

·Dilution of funds ('saupoudrage'): the funds, which are currently too modest, are often divided among many rather small-scale projects, making impossible to focus on (politically) interesting initiatives and missing steering potential. However, small-scale projects (for example town-twinning) allow to reach out citizens who otherwise would not participate in European projects. A right balance needs to be found in this respect.

·Complexity of funding rules represents an obstacle for applicants: each year prospective applicants for a grant must keep track of high number of different calls for proposals and have to work through different priorities, eligibility, selection and award criteria, different supporting documents and different deadlines for submission. In the same vein "the use of more simplified application forms", has been identified by the respondents to the open public consultation as the main step to be taken to simplify and reduce the administrative burdens for beneficiaries.

Drivers affecting the monitoring system

·More efforts are needed to monitor closely the outputs, results and impacts of the programmes and to make the monitoring system a concrete instrument to improve the effectiveness of funded measures. The Commission services together with the Education and Culture Executive Agency where relevant, need to define a monitoring strategy to ensure the correct delivery of the outputs. Furthermore the results achieved need to be communicated more regularly and transparently to stakeholders and citizens alike.

2.2.Objectives of the programmes of the next MFF

The above section shows that the objectives of the current funding programmes are still highly relevant to respond to the policy needs and that the objectives of current MFF programmes in this area are still not achieved although still valid. In that respect, the analysis done does not lead to a complete re-thinking of the objectives of the future funding programmes in this area, but rather to a re-focusing on areas of actions with a clear EU added value to respond to policy needs.

2.2.1.The aim of the initiative

Promoting and defending EU values, rights and cultures has profound implications for the political, social, cultural, judicial and economic life of the Union and contributes to making the EU tangible in the people day-to-day lives. Therefore, sustained and reinforced action at EU level in this area is required to address the new challenges and persisting gaps and ensure the promotion, effective protection and respect of rights and values: this will also contribute to enhancing the internal market and build a more prosperous and more cohesive EU. Furthermore, it will allow the EU to fully play a key role in defending and promoting those values within the EU but also at global level, also contributing to the Sustainable development Goals.

Therefore the overarching aim of the initiative is to create a EU values framework of the EU budget in order to sustain open, democratic, culturally capable, inclusive and creative societies and empower people through protecting and promoting rights, values, European cultural and linguistic diversity and heritage - as enshrined in the EU Treaty, in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - through further developing an EU area of justice, and through supporting the competitiveness and sustainability of the Cultural and Creative Sectors.

2.2.2.The specific objectives of the future funding programmes 

In light of the general objective described above and taking into account of the analysis done in the previous sections, future funding will focus on areas of action which have clear EU added value and are relevant to the policy needs. In particular, the proposed specific objectives of the future programmes are re-grouped under four main strands: empowering people, media, culture and Justice and are the following:

EMPOWERING PEOPLE

Empowering people through the promotion and protection of rights, values and equality, and through creating opportunities for citizens' engagement and participation, including by supporting civil society organisations.

MEDIA

Promoting the competitiveness and scalability of the European audiovisual industry and cultural diversity and artistic freedom as a EU value through support to the creation, promotion, access and dissemination of European works reaching large audiences within Europe and beyond thereby accompanying the AVMSD

CULTURE

Safeguarding, developing and promoting European cultural diversity and Europe's cultural heritage and strengthening the competitiveness of the European cultural and creative sectors (with the exception of the audiovisual industry)

JUSTICE

·Facilitating and supporting judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters, promoting the rule of law by supporting the efforts to improve the effectiveness of national justice systems;

·Supporting and promoting judicial training, with a view to fostering a common legal and judicial culture;

·Facilitating effective access to justice for all, including by electronic means, by promoting efficient civil procedures and by promoting and supporting the rights of victims of crime as well as the procedural rights of suspects and accused persons in criminal proceedings.

The intervention logic and the link between the initiative and the future programmes are summarised and visualised in the following diagrams.

Figure 2: Intervention logic

3.Programme structure and priorities

3.2.1.Key features of the current funding programmes: the baseline scenario

The four funding programmes and the prerogative lines are implemented via centralised direct management.

As regards the implementation of the annual work programmes of the REC and JUSTICE programmes, three types of actions are funded: action grants and operating grants mainly addressed to civil society organizations, legal practitioners, but also to Member States authorities through restricted calls for proposals; it also funds specific actions taken by the Commission, such as studies, surveys, conferences, specific IT projects, awards etc. (Commission initiatives through procurements), this latter weighting for around 20% of the total budget.

The Europe for Citizens programme awards action grants and operating grants mainly addressed to civil society organisations. Approximately 20% of the budget has been devoted to "European remembrance", 60% to "Democratic engagement and civic participation", 10% to valorisation activities and around 10 % for administrative expenditure. The programme has also been used to support specific actions taken by the Commission in relation to the management and the promotion of the European Citizens' Initiative (IT support, communication, etc.).

The financial envelope for the implementation of the Creative Europe Programme is allocated as follows: at least 56 % for the MEDIA Sub-programme; at least 31 % for the Culture Sub-programme; a maximum of 13 % for the Cross-sectoral Strand.

The MEDIA sub-programme award action grants which support concrete audiovisual projects such as films that are then made available in the market. Support focuses on training, content creation, cross-border distribution of works, promotion and market access. The main beneficiaries are audiovisual professionals and SMEs, consisting of independent European producers and distributors; cinemas, online platforms and festivals focusing on European films; audiovisual markets and promotion networks. In the period 2014-2017 the programme has awarded 7960 action grants. Grants account for 100% of the MEDIA sub-programme.

The Creative Europe's Culture sub-programme mostly consists in action grants to mainly public but also private cultural organizations and institutions such as theatres, museums, arts or music venues, heritage sites or professional networks., but also includes prizes (two Melina Mercouri prizes for the two European Capitals of Culture of any given year), Framework Partnership Agreements, one operating grant (for the European Union Youth Orchestra) and service contracts.

Within the cross-sectoral strand, the Cultural and Creative Sectors Guarantee Facility, which is a financial instrument, has a budget of € 121 million in the 2016-2020 period. A top-up of €60 million from European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI) was agreed in 2017 and, given the strong market demand, the EFSI is preparing a second top up of at least the same amount. The original budget of the Guarantee Facility represents 8% of the Creative Europe financial envelope.

Table 2: Statistics on the type of actions under the current programmes

* the period reflected for the Justice and the REC programmes is 2014-2016

The assumption under the baseline scenario is that the above key features and budget related to the individual programmes will remain the same.

In the following paragraphs, there is an estimation of the possible impact on the programmes of a possible reduction in the budget of approximatively 15%. In particular:

A 15% reduction in funding for the REC and the JUSTICE programmes would be reflected in the number of annual calls for proposals and in the annual prioritisation, i.e. concentration of funding on fewer programme priorities in one year and promoting other priorities in the following years, in contradiction with the increasing needs in the field. This reduction would also mean the reduction of the Commission's activities financed through procurements such as studies, data collection, awareness-raising campaigns etc., as priority would need to be given to continuity in any financial support in particular to key partners through grants. This reduction would also have a negative impact on the possibility to fund all the needed trainings of the judiciary on EU legislation, an activity with a clear EU added value.

For Europe for Citizens, a budgetary cut of 15%, would cut the baseline budget down to €157 million which is insufficient in the context of the Commission's commitment to put citizens in the centre of the European process. In case of a budgetary cut by 15%, it would have to be mirrored proportionally in all strands and measures of the programme. Under this scenario, the critical mass of participants and the geographical coverage of activities necessary to achieve the intended impact would no longer be reached. A stable budgetary envelope (based on the budget 2017) would allow continuity but still with a limited impact.

A decrease of 15% in funding for the MEDIA sub-programme of Creative Europe will inevitably require streamlining and concentrating on a limited number of actions. As MEDIA includes several measures to positively discriminate in favour of lower production countries and/or countries with a restricted geographic/linguistic area, a reduction in funding would disproportionately impact those countries XLIV . A reduction in the number of training activities (1800 beneficiaries per year) would limit the possibilities of audio visual professionals to adapt to and benefit from the opportunities offered by the digital shift. Cuts on the development and TV production schemes would result in a reduced number of EU co-productions, which are the works that travel better across borders. The network of cinema operators represents a total number of 2806 cinema screens in 680 towns in 43 countries for 78.000.000 admissions per year: a reduction in the scope of the network would negatively impact the access of EU citizens, notably from Central and Eastern European countries, to non-national European content.

Regarding Creative Europe (Culture sub-programme), a decrease of 15% would not allow reaching a critical mass in response to the needs of the cultural and creative sectors. This would imply the following:

·Reduced impact in European added value in terms of cultural diversity: less diverse and more homogenized cultural offer for EU citizens including from dominant non-European market players, fewer cross-border cooperation and new market opportunities or career possibilities for practitioners from the cultural and creative sectors;

·Societal impact would be reduced: e.g. the reach of the culture cooperation projects estimated at 7 million citizens in EU by end 2020 (including 4 million youngsters) would decrease;

·The international opening of the programme may be limited at its pre-2014 level: participation of key EU neighboring partner countries may be abandoned;

·Specific actions would be streamlined or abandoned thus limiting the programme's impact both in quantitative and qualitative terms;

·Proportionally higher administrative costs for running the programme.

3.2.2.Alternative to the baseline scenario: a EU values framework with two funding programmes

The analysis done in terms of drivers that affect the architecture of the future programmes, shows that there is room for improvement from the current situation of four funding programmes and two prerogative lines. The new architecture of the future funding as an alternative to the baseline scenario aims at:

·Developing synergies among policies finding a common ground for action, while respecting their specificities;

·Reducing overlap and fragmentation;

·Ensuring flexibility in the allocation of funds, while ensuring a certain degree of predictability of funding dedicated to each policy;

·Fostering cross sectoral and innovative actions;

·Ensuring a critical mass of resources to promote values, taking also into account the needs of each policy.

Therefore, as an alternative to the current situation and baseline scenario made of four funding programmes and two prerogative lines, it is proposed to develop synergies among the current programmes and prerogative lines and to combine them into a single political chapeau on EU Values with two underlying funding programmes: the European Culture, Rights and Values Programme and the Justice Programme, as visualized below:

Figure 3: Current versus new architecture of the funding for EU values

This will allow a straightforward simplification, from four current funding programmes and two prerogative lines to only two funding programmes in the future. This new clustering will allow to further exploit the potential of current programmes to promote EU values and increase EU added value. The full exploitation of the interplay between cultural diversity, historical memory and the potential of the creative sector from one hand, and principles such as justice, rights, equality and anti-discrimination from the other hand, is fundamental in this model and will be possible through the common denominator of citizenship.

For example, as shown by the mid-term evaluation of Creative Europe programme, the current architecture is too cumbersome, as it includes 2 general objectives, 4 specific objectives four dimensions of added value, common to all the strands of the Creative Europe programme and in addition, 7 priorities and 11 support measures for the MEDIA sub programme. The proposed architecture under the new programme provides a major simplification compared to the current structure, to make support more flexible and able to adapt to new emerging needs.

While it is expected that the overall initiative will increase the potential of the EU to act to promote and protect Values by developing synergies between current funding Programmes, the proposed model acknowledges and maintains the specificities of the single policies, including through the design of policy strands. This will allow taking into due consideration the distinctive nature of the policies who will compose the new programme(s) as well as the inherent specificities of the current programmes, such as the different scope of the legal basis and the existence of already well-defined and different targeted stakeholders who expect to recognize their own respective policy in the initiative.

All in all, maintaining well-established brands of EU programmes will help to ensure continued engagement as well as visibility of EU support. Therefore distinctive strands will be maintained.

A new European Culture, Rights and Values Programme

The proposed general objective of the European Culture, Rights and Values Programme is to empower people and sustain open, democratic, inclusive and creative societies through protecting and promoting rights, equality and values as well as cultural diversity and cultural heritage as enshrined in the EU Treaty, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The Programme will have three strands which will deliver on the above objective and which will be further articulated on specific objectives specified in the previous section. It will also have a cross-strand support:

A    EMPOWERING PEOPLE. Empowering people through the promotion and protection of rights values and equality freedom of expression, including media freedom and pluralism and through creating opportunities for engagement and participation;

B    MEDIA. Promote the competitiveness and scalability of the European audiovisual industry and cultural diversity as an EU value through support to the creation, promotion, access and dissemination of European works by large audiences within Europe and beyond whereby accompanying the AVMSD; (thereafter referred to as MEDIA)

C    [CULTURE]. Safeguarding, developing and promoting European cultural diversity and Europe's cultural heritage and strengthening the competitiveness of the European cultural and creative sectors (with the exception of the audiovisual industry) (thereafter referred to as Culture)

D    CROSS-STRAND SUPPORT. The cross-strand support would provide for and accelerate the synergies between the different strands of the programme. As such it would be the 'glue' that creates bonds, thus strengthening the internal coherence of the programme. It will support joint actions having a stronger impact than actions delivered by each strand on its own, in particular:

a)Funding should be devoted to promote the visibility of the programme and foster citizens' outreach. This may include dissemination tools and information campaigns, including through social media with a focus on the young, as well as ‘capacity building’. Funding will also be used to ensure the mainstreaming of Charter of Fundamental rights, equality and anti-discrimination in the post-2020 MFF.

b)Funds should foster creativity and citizens' engagement through a Creative Lab, which will experiment new forms of culture creation and distribution at the crossroads between different cultural and creative sectors XLV or with the education sector, through the use of digital means as well as between culture and fundamental rights, or audio-visual and non-discrimination policies XLVI .

c)Access to finance to all cultural and creative SMEs building on the successful deployment of the Cultural and Creative Sectors Guarantee Facility will be addressed under the SME window of the InvestEU programme which guarantees debt and equity support to enhance access and availability of finance for SMEs. While the access to debt finance remains the main challenge for the SMEs from cultural and creative sectors, the need for providing equity and quasi-equity to cash-intensive and fast growing creative SMEs and mid-caps will also be further explored.

d)Funds should also be devoted to a network of desks that will promote the programme at national level, provide information, support cross border cooperation between potential beneficiaries and support the Commission in disseminating the results of the programme and reaching out the citizens.

The new JUSTICE Programme

The aim of the future JUSTICE funding Programme shall be the further development of a European area of justice based on mutual recognition and mutual trust and to contribute to upholding EU values such as the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, the effectiveness of the justice system and its equal access to all. The Programme shall largely continue to follow the intervention logic of its predecessor programme supporting Member States to achieve more effective justice systems, where legal practitioners know how and when to apply EU acquis, where cross-border cooperation is thriving and the rights of victims and persons accused of crime are respected. Support to collect comparative information on the efficiency, quality and independence of national justice systems and national rule of law safeguards should continue, including in order to feed into the EU Justice Scoreboard and the European Semester. In relation to technological developments, the Programme shall have cross-cutting objectives of digitalisation, including of national justice systems, civic technology, robotics, registers and legal technology. The anti-drugs component of the current Justice Programme would fall under the successor of the Internal Security Fund – Police.

3.2.3.Discarded alternative: one programme

For reasons connected to the legal basis the alternative proposing one sole instrument/programme has been discarded.

Most of the activities and policies are based on articles that foresee an ordinary legislative procedure except for the current Europe for Citizens Programme.

Currently the main focus of the Europe for Citizens Programme is on civic participation and hence it is based on art. 352 TFEU (unanimity). After analysis, the objectives of the corresponding activities could, subject to a certain reorientation of their focus, be adapted to fit within the new approach of a broader programme; hence they would fall within the scope of Art 167(1) and (2) TFEU, which foresee the ordinary legislative procedure.

However, the Justice Programme legal basis, whilst also commanding the ordinary legislative procedure, is subject to the variable geometry organised in Protocols 21 and 22 to the Treaties. Thus it needs to remain in a separate instrument.

Furthermore, after analysis, the activities currently funded under the prerogative line "communication and evaluation activities that are contributing to an area of justice and fundamental rights" cannot be included in the future programme as their legal basis would be art 352.

A detailed enumeration of the legal basis of the framework is included in annex 5.

3.1.Priorities

Setting priorities will be crucial to focus future interventions on policy priorities and emerging issues and achieve better results. The priorities are presented hereafter by policy area.

In the area of rights and equality

·The mid-term evaluation confirms the relevance of the objectives and the need to continue to act on all covered areas but also provides indications that an increased attention should be given to emerging issues such as for instance as cyber-violence (see section 1.2.1.).

·Operating grants have proved to be effective and should be prioritised. This allows the functioning of NGO's and EU-wide networks, such as victim support organisations, equality bodies, representative organisations of persons with disabilities, etc.

·A critical mass of NGOs need to be reached in order to have a multiplier effect and ensure that the EU strengthens its role and image as champion in the promotion of rights and values.

·Work with national administrations, for instance through restricted calls for proposals remains key to ensure complementarities of actions between the EU and national levels.

·Funds need to be devoted to activities to support policy and legislative developments, monitoring and follow-up and to ensure an efficient implementation of the Commission's right initiative and efficient governance of the EU legislative process. This includes procurements for impact assessment, market studies, conformity checks, experts groups, etc.

As indicated in section 1.2.1., the lessons learned with the REC programme show that setting the specific objectives at policy level allows enough flexibility in the phase of implementation to focus on specific priorities, to adapt to emerging issues, but also to face a scarcity of funding (i.e. by alternating calls for proposals of different policy areas every other year). Therefore, the above priorities will not have an impact on the architecture of the future programme and regulation.

In the area of citizenship  

Funding activities should follow a bottom-up approach that has proved successful in the current programmes, namely the REC, Europe for Citizens and Creative Europe. In particular, the positive experience of Europe for Citizens should be further promoted to create opportunities for a debate on European history beyond national perspectives and to fund remembrance projects. As a follow up of the European Year of Cultural heritage, larger projects of preservation and conservation of major European memorial sites and archives will be also promoted.

Funds should also seek to strengthen the role of media as a cornerstone for democracy with actions related to monitoring and supporting media freedom and pluralism, quality journalism and media literacy, thus helping building better informed and democratic European societies, contributing to enabling citizens to make full use of their right to be informed. This includes addressing the phenomenon of disinformation.

The programme should also promote opportunities for societal and intercultural engagement and civic participation and by bringing together Europeans to discuss and work together on issues of common concern in town-twinning projects, networks of towns and civil society projects. This would help boosting citizens' awareness of fundamental values, their degree of engagement in society and with the EU project. Cultural activities such as the European Heritage Label and Days should also be used as an arena for citizens to gain awareness and raise their voice on political issues..

Support should also be given to the European Citizens’ Initiative, which is a unique instrument for participatory democracy enabling citizens to have a say in policies that affect their lives.

In the area of culture

Support shall be given to the reinforcement of the cross-border dimension of the cultural and creative sectors within Europe and beyond through a dedicated mobility scheme. Mobility in the culture and creative sectors pursues specific objectives, which take into account the specific nature of the artistic and creative production process, namely focusing on the potential of co-creation or audience development via residencies, or similar exchanges which are result-oriented. The mobility scheme will support the intrinsic dynamic of the artistic creation by bringing together artistic and creative professionals from diverse sectors and disciplines. The aim is to develop joint activities driven by their common cultural and artistic vision in order to produce joint outputs and results in the form of innovative creative and artistic works and productions. The scheme will create favourable conditions for artists and creative professionals in Europe to integrate cross-border mobility, which is essential to nurture their talent, and for their careers and for audience development. It will for instance increase the visibility of European artists and creative professionals, in particular emerging ones and those lacking international exposure. Individual mobility in this sense is a means to jointly develop artistic and creative talent and network building, which is particularly relevant for artists and creative professionals, especially those at the start of their career. Besides, this tailor-made type of individual mobility is essential to promote and safeguard cultural diversity and creative content, which is one of the main missions of the EU in the field of Culture. This particular nature and specific aims justifies the independent existence of such a mobility scheme outside the Erasmus+ Programme, which primarily focus on mobility actions with a strong learning component as a key element and which does not primarily aim at the production of joint outputs. The target groups for a mobility action under the culture sub-programme would be both individuals but also the mostly smaller public or private culture and creative institutions and organisations who could host these professionals.

The programme will also provide support to the European Capitals of Culture, the European Heritage Label and EU cultural prizes. It also envisages granting operating support to pan-European organisations and allows for policy development actions.

Support shall be given to the building of a cultural capacity leading to increase cultural participation for all Europeans, including via awareness activities in education and training or in areas with close links to culture such as public or urban spaces.

Funding will be dedicated to foster favourable ecosystems for the Cultural and Creative Sectors’ capacity to innovate, embrace the digital shift and to incarnate and favour the development of European identity.

Based on the experience of the audiovisual sector, a targeted support will aim at meeting the needs of certain creative sectors along their value chain such as the music sector XLVII and the cultural and heritage sectors XLVIII . Support to the literature/publishing sector, which is currently limited to the translation and promotion of European literature across borders in Europe and beyond, will be broadened while the challenges for other sectors such as architecture, design or fashion to contribute to cultural diversity and become resilient is targeted via limited concrete actions. Creating links with cultural tourism activities could be part of such targeted support in close linkages with the future Single Market programme.

In line with the Communication on "Towards an EU strategy for international cultural relations", the programme will also strive to reinforce the promotion of cultural and creative works from participating countries in the rest of the world and develop more targeted activities with organisations in third countries.

The programme will also provide support to the European Capitals of Culture, the European Heritage Label and EU cultural prizes. It also envisages granting operating support to pan-European organisations and allows for policy development actions.

In the area of audiovisual

The MEDIA programme will accompany the industrial and cultural objectives pursued by the provisions of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. In a more open and competitive digital single market, it will be crucial that funds favour the scaling up and consolidation of the EU audiovisual industries. The new AVMS Directive will set-up an objective of 30% of European works available on VOD. This will be an opportunity for European works, but needs accompanying measures to help make European non-national works available across the Union. This means in practice, focusing on those projects and actions bearing a potential for cross-border success and stepping up investments in the promotion of EU works XLIX .

Europe needs to invest more in its audiovisual talent. Priority will be given to help 5000 young or established professionals per annum, to understand the impact of new technologies on production processes, marketing and distribution, through physical and on-line training, (MOOCs) for wider reach and mentoring activities to ultimately make the EU audiovisual industry more competitive.

Support will be clarified and cater on the one hand, for single development for projects from smaller markets to ensure diversity and on the other, support will be provided to slates of films and individual high profile European films and TV series able to compete with US productions L . Structured promotion support will enhance the commercial success of the European films which have a clear export potential in markets such as the US, Asia (China) and Latin America.

New actions will be developed to support innovative story telling formats and in particular virtual reality, to help champion a leading European VR ecosystem. LI

Distribution of works across borders will be reinforced and made more efficient LII by bringing together online and theatrical distribution and enhancing cross border collaboration. Support will be given to a selection of 25 European films per annum and to the distribution of slates of films.

Support to VOD platforms will move from individual support LIII to a structured network of European VOD services, encouraging strategic collaboration among platforms regarding technology, data collection and promotional activities and possibly acquisitions of rights. The objective is to increase SVOD subscribers by 200% and TVOD transactions by 50%.

Support will be provided to double the reach of the European network of cinemas in medium sized towns with fewer than 100.000 residents LIV (from 269 cities in 2016 to 400 in 2027) especially in Eastern countries; to promote EU films among young audiences LV and foster collaborations to innovate the cinematic experience.

The current individual support to film festivals will be replaced by a structured pan European network of festivals to reach economies of scale and expand their audience. The objective is to support more than 100 festivals and reach audience of 10 million in 2027. LVI .

In the area of Justice

In order to achieve medium to long-term results in this policy area, priority should be given to action that:

·help Member States to achieve more effective justice systems, where legal practitioners know how and when to apply EU acquis, where cross-border cooperation is thriving and the rights of victims and persons accused of crime are respected. Support to EU-wide networks working in this area is crucial.

·Support to collect comparative information on the efficiency, quality and independence of national justice systems and national rule of law safeguards should continue, in particular to feed into the EU Justice Scoreboard and the European Semester.

·support the expected continued digitisation of the national justice systems and interoperability of IT systems to enhance judicial cooperation and access to justice and achieve full EU coverage concerning all voluntary e-justice projects;

·increase the capacity of national legal practitioners and public authorities in Union law, including training on the Charter of fundamental rights as well as the support and co-operation between these authorities and the European Public Prosecutor´s Office (EPPO)

·ensure procedural rights and rights of victims;

External activities

As a general rule, the future funding instruments should remain open to third EEA countries, acceding and candidate countries, also allowing for ad-hoc collaborations with the FPI on issues on common interest, following a flexible approach. At the same time, some sectorial specificities should be taken into account and continue in the future. Since its inception, the MEDIA programme has required alignment with the Audivisual Media Services Directive to accede the programme. In the future full alignment with the provisions of the revised AVMS Directive will be required to acceding countries, , potential candidate countries and EFTA countries covered by the EEA agreement and the Swiss confederation. Lighter requirements will be defined for countries covered by the European Neighbourhood policy to allow for partial participation in MEDIA. The current Culture Sub-programme already includes third countries and allows allocating a certain percentage of costs to partner organisations in third countries. Furthermore in line with the Communication on "Towards an EU strategy for international cultural relations", the Culture part should remain open to the participation of Neighbouring countries but also allow for targeted activities on the global market.

In addition, synergies and greater alignment between DEVCO funds and culture and MEDIA funds to promote international collaboration should be put in place to avoid overlaps. This could be implemented by earmarked funding from the different external instruments to some well-established MEDIA actions such as training, international co-productions or access to market or in specific culture actions. Furthermore, MEDIA will be devoting efforts in structured promotion of EU films with an export potential, targeting primarily countries such as the US, China, Russia, India, and Latin America.

3.2.Synergies with other funding programmes

The future EU values framework and its underlying funding programmes will inter-act with the other post-2020 funding programmes. The following synergies deserve to be highlighted:

3.2.1.Synergies with the other programmes under the future "Investing in people and EU values" framework

The creation of a cluster of the EU budget specifically dedicated to "Investing in people and EU values" creates bonds between the programmes that will contribute to it.

The future European Social Fund and EaSI programme will be a major building block of the "Investing in People and Values" framework. It will provide support to citizens by investing in human capital, supporting (youth) employment, social innovation, the acquisition of basic digital skills and the integration of migrants, and by supporting the most deprived (social inclusion). Potential synergies will need to be developed, or strengthened, as the funds will have a strong potential to directly impact people – including the most disadvantaged and discriminated - and promote gender equality and equal opportunities for under-represented groups such as the Roma as well as social justice, EU values and the respect of fundamental rights. The envisaged strengthened focus on a bottom-up approach will also create ownership for reforms with citizens and promote a better understanding and acceptance of a Social Europe. The future European Social Fund and EaSI programme will achieve their objectives by working on the employment and social inclusion of Europeans, a different – and complementary – angle than the angle of values, rights and culture.

Synergies with Erasmus+ can be reinforced by exploiting practical experience from the National Agencies and by more systematically mainstreaming needs of culture education and training institutions into the existing and future actions. Erasmus + can also support discriminated groups – such as youngsters with disabilities - in their access to education and towards stronger social inclusion.

3.2.2.Synergies with the "External Action" cluster of the budget 

The promotion of values and rights within the EU is mirrored by their promotion at the global level, including through the linkages of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. In this respect, synergies need to be developed in particular with the external action at multilateral level but also in the development cooperation aid, to ensure coherence in the promotion of for instance gender equality, anti-discrimination, tolerance, the rule of law.

Notwithstanding the possibility of "windows" for certain (capacity building) activities within the international instrument, the culture strand intends to open the European Capital of Culture initiative through twinning and shadowing schemes, the Networks and Platforms schemes LVII to non-EU countries with (limited) opportunities for competing for the Prizes, to develop incentives to foster the inclusion of third country partners in projects where member states organisations are in the lead, to support individual artist mobility through exchanges, training and residencies and to support promotional efforts in strategically important markets and festivals outside the EU member states for which there is currently no specific budget.

3.2.3.Synergies with the Single Market Programmes

The creation of a EU values framework in the EU budget represents the other side of the coin of a European project based on the single market but also able to go beyond. In particular, the future Single Market Programme will provide support to citizens and consumer in the internal market, thereby contributing to enhance their rights and empower them. In this respect, it will complement the actions that will be funded by the EU Culture, values and rights programme that has a strong component on empowering people. Synergies can also be found on tourism which has a cultural dimension and can be seen as a way of enhancing mutual understanding among people. Synergies will be strong with the future Justice programme as well. Indeed, by financing activities on company law, contract law and Anti-Money Laundering, the future Single market Programme will contribute directly to the implementation of the EU policy in the field of justice and the creation of an EU area of justice and will follow the policy lines developed in this respect. The same is valid for the consumer policy.

The culture strand will focus its interventions, where adequate, on the creativity and cultural elements of certain industries (such as fashion) by concentrating on promotion, skills development or training.

3.2.4.Synergies with budget cluster on Strategic Infrastructure

The EU values framework should be reflected in the future Digital Europe Programme (DEP) which will be the “successor” of the current Connecting Europe Facility program, incorporating building blocks and Digital Service Infrastructures. Indeed, while the EU values framework - and in particular the Justice programme enables to develop Commission lead central platforms- , the future DEP would enable to ensure the digital transformation of the judicial systems in the Member States, the development of LegalTech by EU companies and cross-border interconnection and interoperability. Furthermore, within the Digital Europe programme two leadership projects will assure the continuation of deployment activities linked to the #Digital4Culture strategy.

The leadership project on digital transformation of the cultural heritage sector will continue to support European initiative.

FP9 R&I programme:

·The cluster on "Inclusive, Resilient and Secure Societies" includes an area of intervention on Cultural Heritage. Within this cluster, it is key to support research and innovation activities for the development of ICT technologies for the digitisation and preservation of tangible and intangible cultural heritage.

·The "Digital Industry" cluster foresees, within the Next Generation Internet area of interventions, research activities which are closely linked to the cultural and creative industries (e.g. AR/VR, immersive environments, human computer interfaces, new (social) media). It is also foreseen to continue efforts to achieve crossovers between the creative sectors, in particular the arts, and innovation in industry and society via the S+T+ARTS initiative.

3.2.5.Synergies with Border management and security

The EU Values framework will develop synergies with the programmes under the cluster "Border management and security". In particular there are synergies to be developed between criminal law activities supported by the Justice programme and the support to security and counter-terrorism. Activities to combat and prevent racism, xenophobia, hate speech are also key in the fight against radicalisation and terrorism. The promotion and protection of the rights of the child in vulnerable situation, i.e. unaccompanied minors, and the prevention of violence against women and children is also key while dealing with migration crisis. Trafficking in human beings has also a gender and age dimension that links this phenomenon to actions to combat violence against women and children.

4.Delivery mechanisms of the intended funding

The analysis done in terms of drivers that affect the delivery mechanisms shows that there is room for improvement as compared of the current baseline scenario that presents a fragmentation of programmes, some overlaps, a dilution of funding, lack of opportunities in terms of innovative approaches and synergies among different policies, insufficient or limited scale dissemination and use of the results and outputs, low success rate. Some of these issues are already tackled thorough the proposed architecture of the future funding programmes as indicated in chapter 3. In this respect, the delivery mechanism of the future funding that is presented in in this section as alternative to the baseline scenario, aims at simplifying and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the programmes through:

·scaling up of beneficiaries and avoid dilution of funding while also keeping the door open to all types of organisations independently from their size;

·Ensuring economies of scale;

·Simplifying the procedure for applicants and beneficiaries;

·Improving visibility, dissemination and use of the results;

·Setting incentives to reward performance and success;

4.1.Implementation mode

The existing funding programmes are mainly implemented through direct management while the Cultural and Creative Sectors Guarantee Facility is currently implemented in indirect management mode by delegation agreement with the European Investment Bank Group. The analysis done until now and the proposed alternative to the current baseline scenario in terms of objectives and architecture of the funding programmes do not lead to the necessity to change management mode. Therefore, the future programmes will continue be implemented via direct and indirect management as described above. Within this direct management, there are different concrete ways of implementation: the executive agency EACEA is used to implement the bulk of the Creative Europe programme (87%) and Europe for Citizens (88%) while the totality of the Justice and REC programmes are executed directly by DG Justice with the contribution of DG EMPL for the part on disability and DG HOME for the part on drugs.

For the future programmes the following is proposed:

·The MEDIA and the [CULTURE] strands will continue to be implemented in a direct management mode through the EAC Executive Agency because this is cost-effective, as confirmed by the mid-term evaluation while strengthening ,the supervision by the parent DGs on EACEA procedures, results and performance.

·Implementation of MEDIA will be simplified and streamlined, for example, by grouping together beneficiaries and reducing the number of underlying grant contracts and payment transactions. Building on the on-going streamlining of the Distribution schemes, which represent 30% of the MEDIA budget, the objective will be to reduce the overall MEDIA transactions by 30%, thus lowering administrative overheads and increasing the efficiency of the programme

·The specific objective " Creating opportunities for citizens' engagement and participation" of the future European Culture, Values and Rights, is expected to give rise to a high number of small scale projects/grants as for it is already the case for the current Europe for citizens (the majority of grants are less than EUR 100,000): therefore, the delivery should be continued through the executive agency EACEA. As compared to the current implementation mode, it is proposed that the activities linked to citizenship, with the exception of procurement activities, are managed by EACEA. Given the new proposed specific objectives, this will include activities on the rights deriving from EU citizenship currently funded by the REC Programme and implemented by DG JUST.

Figure 4: Mechanism chosen for the delivery of the different components of the programme:

4.2.Type of expenditure

Part of the Programmes should be implemented through action grants and operating grants since their direct beneficiaries are to a large extent Civil Society Organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations (CSOs/NGOs), social partners, SMEs, legal practitioners, networks, public cultural institutions and other actors. Restricted grants remain an important tool to co-finance activities with public administration and bodies. Operating grants have also proved to be an important tool to support CSOs/NGOs I all areas in order to allow for more sustainability and should also be maintained in the future given that the functioning of an organization depends heavily on stability in annual budgetand staff continuity.

The possibility of using 'cascading grants' according to the provision of the Financial Regulation, as it is already happening for the Creative Europe, Culture platforms scheme or the refugee projects, shall be further explored in particular for the areas currently managed by DG JUST as this would allow for smaller grants without the administrative disproportionality. Along the same lines, for MEDIA, the implementation by the Agency will be streamlined, notably by reducing the number of micro or small grants. Beneficiaries will be brought together into groupings or consortia and cascading grants will be used in order to further reduce the number of grants as well as payments to be processed. In order to facilitate consortia, coordination costs will be eligible for support. Grants will include incentives which provide for increased financial support for those projects and beneficiaries which meet verifiable targets corresponding to policy goals e.g. increased audiences or successful promotion campaigns. Such focus on consolidation of projects, through the development of networks and cascading grants could results in a decrease by at least 30% of the number of financial transactions and correspondent administrative overheads.

In certain cultural and creative areas, rewarding of excellence or innovation is being honoured via prizes linked to financial support. This is a way of boosting creativity and steering the sector. Also based on actions currently being tested with the "Music moves Europe" Preparatory Action, which address the specific needs of the music sector, new funding mechanisms will specifically target this sector with the aim of meeting the needs of the sector along their value chain.

Procurement activities will also be used to finance for instance studies, exchange of good practices, experts' networks or awareness-raising actions such as European Awards and represent an important tool in particular in the policy fields currently covered by the REC and Justice.

Support to facilitate the access to finance of companies operating in the cultural and creative sectors will be provided through financial instruments within InvestEU, which will provide guarantees to financial intermediaries and equity financial instruments, as well as technical assistance grants.

One of the problem drivers discussed earlier on was that the complexity and heterogeneity of funding rules in the current programmes are an obstacle for applicants. The use of a single entry point for external users to participate in the grants' life cycle (i.e. a participant portal) and of an overall grant management system have an important role to play in facilitating access to the programme. This is currently the case for DG JUST, which has finished migrating to the Commission corporate system for H2020. DG CNECT is starting this migration through EACEA, and DG EAC and HOME will also do the same at a later stage (also through EACEA).

The complexity of funding rules as well as the “lack of support to first time applicants” pointed out by stakeholders will also been addressed through the creation of a cross strand support and in particular the funding of a common network of desks and contact points, building on existing networks, whose main objective will be to provide information on the programmes to current and potential beneficiaries, and on the possibility to build transnational partnerships.

Communication on the programmes and dissemination of the results, also been pointed out as weaknesses, will be an important focus of the cross-strand support which will allow to dedicate fund to design a proper communication strategy for the European Culture, Rights and Values programme.

4.3.Alignment with recent changes in the Financial Regulation

Substantial simplification measures such as lump sums and flat rates, e-form application and grant decisions have already been introduced in the current Europe for Citizens programme. Along these lines, simplification will be sought in the implementation related to the policy areas currently managed by DG JUST, such as lump sums, flat rates and unit costs while respecting the rules of the Financial Regulation and its last developments. This will free administrative resources and will redirect them towards more results-oriented grant management. The specificity of the cultural sector and the individual character of the supported actions have made the calculation and application of lump sum and flat-rates challenging (outside the literary translation scheme) but where the calculation basis can be lightened would constitute a welcome reduction of bureaucracy for beneficiaries. Lump sums will continue to be used in MEDIA in order to simplify financial management, when appropriate. The methodology for calculating the lump sums will foresee a regular monitoring to ensure alignment with real costs. In the framework of FPAs, successful projects could be rewarded and more balanced spending could be achieved without punishing failure.

5.How will performance be monitored and evaluated?

A detailed monitoring and evaluation plan will be developed to specify how the related actions will be carried out in practice, under what data strategy (including what data is required and how it will be collected and analysed).

Programme monitoring will take place both continuously (e.g. to respond timely to any unforeseen events/exceptional needs) and on a regularly planned basis (to report on key events such as calls for proposals, project reviews, coordination or dissemination events) and where relevant feed into some key programme indicators.

The monitoring reports will subsequently feed into:

·A mid-term evaluation (to be performed no later than four years after the start of programme implementation)

·A final evaluation (to be performed no later than four years after the end of the programming period)

·Annual monitoring reports.

These retrospective evaluations will be carried out in compliance with the latest applicable version of the Better Regulation guidelines (drawing also on its toolbox guidance and best practice) and assess the programme's performance based on key programme indicators/targets and on a detailed analysis of the degree to which the programme can be deemed relevant, effective, efficient, provides enough EU added value and is coherent with main EU policies. They will include recommendations to address any lacks/problems identified or any potential to further improve the actions or their results and to help maximise their exploitation/impact.

The Commission Services will communicate the conclusions of these evaluations (together with its observations) to the European Parliament, Council, European Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions. The programme monitoring and evaluation reports will be made public, together with a scoreboard of key programme indicators.

The key indicators proposed to help measure the success of the programme are listed below LVIII[i].

These indicators (corresponding to levels 1 LIX[ii]and 2 LX[iii] in the joint taxonomy defined by DG BUDG) address the main objectives of the programme in the form of impact or result indicators.

Some of these indicators have been used in the past (within currently running programmes), in which case baseline data could already be identified in which to ground some tentative targets.

For other indicators proposed which are new, no baseline data will be available until at least the end of 2020 (though in some cases it may be possible to foresee what level of improvement over this future baseline could be targeted during the implementation of the programme).

The set of indicators proposed has been designed in order to cover the programme objectives to help evaluate its effectiveness/relevance and added value.       

5.1.Culture, Rights and Values programme

5.2.Justice programme

In addition, further operational programme management indicators (related to level 3 LXI[iv]) inspired by existing programmes and/or seeking to reflect commonalities between the various strands (e.g. where similar types of activities/output are foreseen, thus helping to measure efficiency/quality gains from the common management strategies developed) are also being identified to help monitor/steer the programme and assess its efficiency in the mid-term and final evaluations (feeding into the full list of indicators per programme/strand, whose detailed specification goes beyond key elements to be specified in this section, but is tentatively included in Annex 7).  

We foresee in particular to continue using management indicators related to effective and reliable internal control systems such as:         

Operational indicators monitoring the geographical coverage of activities are also foreseen (e.g. to foster capacity building of European civil society so as to prevent the shrinking of civic space).

In addition to further operational indicators, some context indicators have been included in annex 7 (to help monitor the distance from some relevant EU policy objectives/identify further progress towards these or explain some elements of impact).

To conclude, it should be underlined that comprehensive/detailed monitoring and evaluation plans (and the related detailed data strategy) will need to be further developed prior to programme implementation, building on key elements already identified. 

Annex 1: Procedural information

In May 2017, the Commission has launched the work on the post-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) to prepare the grounds for new, modified or renewed funding programmes. It initiated a spending review exercise that should, first, analyse the performance and achievements of the current funding programmes including their EU added value and successes and failures and identify the opportunities for synergies. In the following exercise, starting in January 2018, the Commission will be working on the preparation of a post-2020 MFF legal proposal and will present it to the European Parliament and the Council before summer 2018.

1)Lead DG(s), Decide Planning/CWP references

The post-2020 MFF DGs Core group and the Vice-President steering group, in its meeting of 12 December 2017 gave a mandate to DG JUST to work towards an EU Values framework of the EU budget after 2020. DG JUST worked together with HOME, EAC, CNECT and EMPL.

In view of the advanced stage of preparations and the compressed timeline, it was decided (note Ares(2018)1243019 - 06/03/2018) that planning entries for the programmes in Decide planning were not required. At the stage of consultation or adoption, as appropriate, lead DGs are however requested to submit the entries for the programmes into Decide to complete the formal adoption procedure.

2)Organisation and timing

A Commission inter-service steering group (ISSG), chaired by the Secretariat-General was established in March 2018 for preparing this initiative. The following DGs and services were invited to the inter-service group included: Legal Service (SJ), Budget (BUDG), Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (GROW), Eurostat (ESTAT), and the Joint Research Center (JRC). The ISG met 3 times on 2 and 19 March 2018 and on 23 April 2018.

During this period, the Commission undertook a broad public consultation between the 10th of January and the 8 of March 2018. As decided per note Ares (2017)5408269 this public consultation was organised at the level of the policy cluster "European values and mobility" (including Erasmus, European Values & Citizenship programme(s)), thus supporting several impact assessments.

An informal upstream meeting was held on 18 January 2018 with RSB representatives and the participation of SG, DG BUDG and JRC. During this discussion Board members [and representatives of the horizontal Services] provided early feedback and advice on the basis of the inception impact assessment. Board members' feedback did not prejudge in any way the subsequent formal deliberations of the RSB.

3)Consultation of the RSB

On 20/04/2018, Regulatory Scrutiny Board gave a positive opinion, by a written procedure, with a recommendation to further improve the report with respect to the following key aspects:

4)Evidence, sources and quality

Mid-term evaluations of the current programmes and final evaluation of the predecessor programmes have been used as a main source of evidence for this impact assessment:

Europe for Citizens programme and predecessor:

·Mid-term evaluation of the Europe for Citizens programme 2007-2013, see: http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/pdf/ecorys-_final_report_europe_for_citizens_en.pdf and http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/europe-for-citizens-programme/programme-2007-2013/index_en.htm  

·Ex post evaluation of the Europe for Citizens programme 2007-2013, see: http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/pdf/final_efcp_final_report_2015_10_15.pdf and http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/pdf/evaluationreportefc2007-2013_en.pdf

Creative Europe programme and predecessor:

·The mid-term evaluation of the Creative Europe programme should be adopted on early April 2018.

For the REC and Justice programme the mid-term evaluation are still on-going and will be published by June 2018. Preliminary results have been used. Predecessor programmes:

·Ex-post evaluation of five programmes implemented under the 2007-2013 financial perspective: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/grants1/files/expost_evaluations_2007_2013/daphne_programme_evaluation__final_report.pdf

The Commission additionally drew on studies and reports that are listed below as well as on policy documents from European Institutions that are listed in annex 6:

·Deloitte and Coffey's mid-term evaluation report of September 2017, p.138, http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/europe-for-citizens-programme/studies/index_en.htm

· https://www.tui-stiftung.de/en/media/young-europe-2017-the-youth-study-of-tui-foundation/

·2015 Eurobarometer on electoral rights

· http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/eb/eb83/eb83_citizen_en.pdf

·EU Citizenship Report 2017

· http://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2016/eumidis-ii-roma-selected-findings

·Fundamental Rights Agency (2014), Violence against women: an EU-wide survey http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra-2014-vaw-survey-main-results-apr14_en.pdf

·2017 report on equality between women and men

·Impact assessment accompanying the communication for a proposal of a directive establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime and for proposal for a regulation on mutual recognition of protection measures in civil matters, SEC(2011) 580 final of 18.5.2011; Impact assessment accompanying the proposal for a directive on the rights of access to a lawyer and of notification of custody to a third person in criminal proceedings, SEC(2011) 686 final of 8.6.2011.

·Ivana Katsarova (2014) European Parliamentary Research Service, ‘Briefing: An Overview of Europe’s Film Industry’, pp. 545,705

·EU Justice Scoreboard COM(2017) 167 final  https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/justice-and-fundamental-rights/effective-justice/eu-justice-scoreboard_en .

·http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/SPECIAL/surveyKy/2077

Annex 2: Stakeholder consultations

The consultation strategy supporting this impact assessment included a public consultation done in the framework of the proposal for the post 2020 MFF in the area of values and mobility, public consultations done in the framework of the mid-term evaluation of the current funding programmes and several ad'hoc consultations organised by the Commission in form of roundtable discussions with stakeholders, conferences and seminars on the issues covered by this IA. The IA largely builds on the outcome of these consultations with stakeholders.

The open public consultation on EU funds in the area of values and mobility

The purpose of the public consultation on EU funds in the area of values and mobility was to collect the views of all interested parties on how to make the most of every euro of the EU budget. Consultations have taken place in the context of evaluations of existing EU financial programmes covering several policy areas, including on current performance and future challenges. It was available from 10 January 2018 to 9 March 2018 in 23 official EU languages.

1. Overview of the replies

In response to the online public consultation on EU funds in the area of values and mobility the Commission received a total of 1839 replies from all over Europe.

There was at least one response received from each Member State, The country of residence with the most overall contributions is Germany (24, 4 %), followed by France (8, 7%), Belgium (7,7%) and Spain (5,4%).

Of the 1839 contributions received via the online questionnaire, 65,2 % (1199) were made on behalf of organisations and 34,8 % (640) by individuals.

A wide range of stakeholders shared their opinions: of those 1199 contributions on behalf of organisations, 355 (19, 3 %) were from Non-Governmental Organisations, platforms or networks, 270 (14, 7%) from private enterprises (above all micro and small enterprises) and 127 (6,9%) from researchers and academics. The following graph shows the type of organisations which have taken part in this consultation.

2. Analysis of the results

On the following pages, the analysis will focus on the respondents who have experience with the following EU programmes: 1. Europe for Citizens Programme (EfC) and /or 2. Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (REC) and /or 3. Creative Europe Programme and /or 4. Justice Programme. The results of this public consultation will be presented question by question.

According to the respondents, "Promote European identity and common values" as well as "promote rights and equality" are important common policy challenges (being one of the four first challenges mentioned) to be addressed in each of the four programmes. "Support active citizenship, democratic participation in society and the rule of law" and "Promote social inclusion and fairness" appear to be important challenges to be addressed in the concerned programmes as well but to a lesser extent in the Creative Europe programme for which economic challenges and cultural diversity are more important.

"Support innovation", "Foster European cultural diversity and cultural heritage", "Promote European identity and common values" are considered as policies that fully or fairly well address the challenges by half or more of the respondents experienced in the four concerned programmes. Additionally 52 % of the respondent experienced in the Creative Europe programme consider that the policy to "Support competitiveness of European cultural and creative sectors" fully or fairly well address the challenges.

Around 80% the respondents experienced in the four above mentioned EU Programmes agree that these programmes add value to a large extent or to a fairly good extent to what Member States could achieve at national, regional and/or local levels.

The main obstacles identified by the respondents that could prevent the current programmes/funds from achieving their objectives are very similar regardless of the programme concerned: "Lack of budget of the programmes to satisfy demand"; "Insufficient support provided to small-scale stakeholders"; "Lack of support to first-time applicants" are identified as the main three obstacles.

The following diagram shows that the respondents, with experience in one or more of the four EU Programmes, agree that "the use of more simplified application forms", "facilitating structured network and partnerships", "facilitating funding for actions cutting across the sectors of action" as well as "better coordination between different programmes/funds" are the main steps to be taken to simplify and reduce the administrative burdens for beneficiaries.

The other steps proposed by the Commission also score quite high in the replies related to each funding programmes. We can note:

·Higher involvement of stakeholders in programme implementation as regards respondents experience with the Creative Europe programme

·"Simpler access for "new-comer" applicants and smaller/grass-root organisations" as regards respondents experience with the EfC and the Justice programme.

·and "incentives for people with fewer opportunities" as regards respondents experience with the REC programme.

Rights, Equality Citizenship

The open consultation on the mid-term evaluation of the REC programme could not be done given that the open consultation on "EU funds in the area of values and mobility" was launched on the 18 of January 2018. However a number of consultations in different format (roundtables, workshops, forum; open online consultations; targeted online surveys or questionnaire) and related to the different policy fields covered by the REC have been done and are summarised below:

On REC Programme /future priorities in general

A targeted round of informal consultations carried out in early 2018 with key stakeholders (EU and national based civil society organisations, networks of national human rights bodies, major donors, international organisations), in the context of 2018 EP preparatory action aimed at "creating an EU fund for awareness raising and legal assistance to individuals and civil society organisations litigating democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights violations […]" LXII indicated the following feedback:

a)there is a need to ensure that funding supports the capacity building and empowerment of human rights bodies and civil society organisations working on the enforcement and promotion of EU law and values, including the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights;

b)it is important to fund concrete activities and coalition building even if projects do not have a cross-border element;

c)the threshold for accessing funds should be accessible and funding be flexible enough to reach specific objectives.

On combatting racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance, including hate speech online

The Annual Colloquia on fundamental rights in the EU in 2015 and 2016 were devoted respectively to "Antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred in Europe" and on "Media Pluralism and Democracy". They were prepared by open public consultations and Eurobarometers . The outcomes of the Colloquia in  2015 and 2016 fed into Conclusions that informed the Commission's response on these policies, including funding priorities through REC. The following key actions were drawn from the discussions: a) empower those active at local level to build a culture of tolerance and respect, in particular through education; b) fight hate speech by working with IT companies, civil society and the media; c) ensure implementation of hate crime laws and new EU rules on protecting the rights of victims of crime and improve recording and data collection of hate crime incidents; d) promote diversity and enforce and strengthen non-discrimination rules; e) protect media freedom and independence from political pressure; safeguard the financial independence of the media in the European Union; f) protect journalists and their freedom of expression; g) promote a healthy political debate and lasting political engagement through media literacy, media ethics and media pluralism.

On Rights of the Child

In April 2014, the Commission conducted a public consultation on integrated child protection systems , further to which it drew up 10 Principles for integrated child protection systems , and they were presented at the 2015 European Forum on the rights of the child . Both the consultation results and the 10 principles are embedded in funding priorities.

Every year, the European Forum on the rights of the child gathers hundreds of stakeholders from NGOs, public authorities and international organisations. The Forum discussions inform policy including funding priorities. The 2016 Forum led to concrete EU policy developments on the protection of children in migration (See 12 April Communication ) and Council conclusions which stressed the importance, amongst other actions, of allocating adequate EU funds (including through REC) to actions on the protection of migrant children and support to integrated child protection systems. Similar connections between stakeholder consultations, policy and funding happened in 2017 on deprivation of liberty of children and the promotion of alternatives to detention for children .

On disability

An open public consultation on the mid-term review of the European Disability Strategy was open between 22.12.2015 and 18.03.2016. As this Strategy is the main implementation tool of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) – to which the EU is a party – the results of the consultation can also inform on the impact of the REC programme on the specific objective: "to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities". The results of the public consultation clearly showed that the situation of people with disabilities remains challenging in terms of participation in everyday activities, rights, employment, accessibility, discrimination and mobility within the EU. 9.84% of individual respondents and 13.21% of organisations mentioned "the use of EU funding" as the most determining factor in achieving progress for people with disabilities.

In addition to the consultation, disabled people's organisations and people with disabilities are regularly invited to directly exchange with the Commission through a number of major events, such as the annual Work Forum on the implementation of the UNCRPD, the High Level Group on Disability, the European Day of People with Disabilities Conference or the Annual Convention for Inclusive Growth. Throughout the year, the Commission also organises regular strategic dialogue meetings on specific initiatives relevant to people with disabilities, including funding issues. Representative organisations of people with disabilities have shared on many occasions the need for adequate EU funds – including the REC programme - to promote and protect the rights of people with disabilities and implement the UNCRPD.

On equality between women and men

Public consultation on the follow-up of the Strategy for equality between women and men 2010-2015 took place between 21 April and 22 July 2015. Almost 5000 contributions from across Europe of which 1408 online contributions by organisations and 3488 by individuals. The high response to this public consultation, the Special Eurobarometer Survey 428 (March 2015), the Forum on the Future of Gender Equality LXIII , an opinion by the Advisory Committee on equal opportunities for women and men LXIV combined give depth and width to the feedback from stakeholders as an important source of information in order to identify priorities for future policy action in the field of gender equality at EU level. An overwhelming percentage of the organisations, 93.9%, considered the priorities laid out in the Strategy for equality between women and men as remaining valid or partially valid, indicating a strong support for continuing future policy work on gender equality. Many of the organisations which participated in the public consultation represented a large number of member organisations, interest groups and associated individuals, or were official institutions within Member States, therefore representing significant numbers of European citizens. In this vein, the results of the consultation prioritised themes to be tackled by the European Commission as follows:

1. Women being paid less than men for the same work or work of equal value,

2. The small number of women in positions of power in politics and businesses,

3. Facing prejudice because of preconceived ideas about the image and role of women and men,

4. Gender-based violence,

5. Widespread violation of women's rights worldwide,

6. The unequal sharing of caring and household tasks between men and women.

Other important themes were clustered into the following topics: governance, gender mainstreaming, education, care, labour market, role of media, and the role of men, among many others.

On the Evaluation of the Roma Framework

The public consultation on the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies up to 2020 LXV ran from 19 July 2017 to 25 October 2017. A key objective of the consultation was to collect views on the implementation of the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies launched in 2011 and running until 2020. The public consultation notably asked about key priorities for the European and national level to which extra efforts should be attributed. Respondents consistently stated that both EU institutions and national authorities should work together to develop measures to improve Roma inclusion. They see a stronger role for the EU than for national authorities in the area of monitoring and enforcing European non-discrimination and anti-racism legislation and making access to funding conditional to developing and implementing ambitious Roma policies. National authorities are expected to play a bigger role in measures such as community building between Roma and non-Roma, non-discrimination and Roma inclusion training for public officials, making Roma history and culture part of school curricula, as well as providing policy guidance to authorities.

Europe for Citizens

Public consultation

In the context of the mid-term evaluation of Europe for Citizens, a public consultation through the Commission's website was organised between January and April 2017 LXVI . The purpose of the consultation was to collect insights on the Europe for Citizens programme from the general public and from programme stakeholders.

The 322 replies received showed LXVII that the Europe for Citizens programme has been perceived as dealing with important issues such as strengthening European citizenship, improving citizens' and democratic participation at EU level and raising awareness of shared history and shared values. Its offer is considered to be unique as it supports citizen-led projects in which ordinary citizens are the protagonists of the action. The current budget of 186 million EUR was assessed as being insufficient to match the ambitious objectives of the programme. It was suggested to consider long-term synergies with Erasmus+ and the Creative Europe programme. The limited visibility of Europe for Citizens was seen as a factor hindering the involvement of relevant stakeholders and communication identified as an area for improvement.

Civil dialogue

In addition to the public consultation, the Commission consulted stakeholders represented in the civil dialogue at their annual meeting of 28 June 2017. Members of the civil dialogue expressed large support for the Europe for Citizens programme considering it as an important programme to consolidate and strengthen pro-European forces. They underlined the necessity for a strong support to civil society, notably on a financial point of view and insisted on the necessity to keep the operating grants as part of the programme. The definition of multiannual priorities for project grants was considered as a positive step increasing the impact of project results.

Europe for Citizens Contact Points

In December 2017, the Europe for Citizens Contact Points adopted a joint statement confirming their strong support for the continuation of Europe for Citizens as an independent programme after 2020 and recommending the strengthening of the position, funding and visibility of the programme. Based on their experience at the national level, they consider the Europe for Citizens programme as an important tool to foster European identity, to understand other cultures and to defend common values.

The next Europe for Citizens programme should retain its current structure but widen the variety of mechanisms for civic participation in the Union policy making processes. To maximize its impact, the programme should focus on more specific priorities and allow for greater flexibility in the structure of projects. In terms of visibility, Contact Points support the creation of synergies between action and operating grant beneficiaries in order to facilitate the visibility of programme’s results.

European Parliament

In March 2017, the European Parliament adopted its first implementation report on Europe for Citizens LXVIII based on an external and an internal study and on focussed stakeholder consultations. In the report, the European Parliament underlined its support for the Europe for Citizens programme stressing the valuable role the programme has proven to play in different policy areas and calling for an increased budget to improve success rates. The streamlined two-strand structure of the programme and the introduction of multi-annual priorities are welcomed as allowing a narrower, but more focussed scope. A more targeted communication strategy and increased synergies between both strands of the programme should be developed. In view of the preparation of the future programme, the European Parliament requested the use of a legal basis allowing for the co-decision procedure.

Creative Europe

An open public consultation (OPC) was launched during the mid-term evaluation of Creative Europe Programme and took place from 23 January to 24 April 2017. Furthermore, targeted surveys were conducted among the beneficiaries of the programme. The objective of the OPC and the two targeted surveys was to gather comments and perspectives to help the assessment of the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, sustainability, efficiency and added value of the Programme. The OPC also included forward looking questions regarding a possible successor programme to Creative Europe after 2020 LXIX .

The OPC questionnaire was published on ‘Your Voice in Europe’ online platform, in English. A total of 557 responses were received during the consultation period. The MEDIA and Culture surveys collected a total of 839 responses (400 and 439 responses respectively) from the beneficiaries of the current Programme .

Concerning the Culture Sub-programme:

Relevance: Overall, around 90% of the respondents believe that most priorities of the Culture Sub-programme are still relevant or extremely relevant.

Coherence: More than a half of the OPC respondents agreed that the support provided by the Culture Sub-programme is either fully or partially complementary to national, EU and international funding. The results of Culture survey show that the Sub-programme funding is largely complementary with national policy support.

Effectiveness: Respondents agree that the Culture Sub-programme is largely effective in facilitating the professional opportunities of cultural and creative players by supporting organisations and international networking, and in supporting the circulation of European literature. 

Efficiency: Two thirds of the OPC respondents believed that the results of the Creative Europe Culture Sub-programme could not have been achieved using less funding.

EU added value: For a small majority of the OPC respondents the Creative Europe’s Culture Sub-programme has complemented existing actions on national, European or international level by supporting cultural subsectors or operators that would not have received support otherwise and contributed to improving the national, European or international support measures for the cultural and creative sectors.

Next to the results of the mid-term evaluation, feed-back and reflexion input was systematically gathered in meetings and events with Creative Europe Desks or projects, in targeted fora such as the Music Moves Europe Forum since 2015 or other public sectoral events but also a dedicated study by the European Parliament. They largely confirmed the above results of the mid-term evaluation and pointed to certain gaps such as specifically targeted support for music, a certain need of operating grants or the need to revisit co-funding amounts and mechanisms.

Concerning the MEDIA Sub-programme:

In the 2017 mid-term evaluation of Creative Europe, stakeholders from across the audiovisual value chain were consulted (producers, distributors, cinema exhibitors, VOD providers, festivals, associations) as well as education/training bodies and Member States bodies, through direct interviews and a survey as well as through an open public consultation.

Over 90% of respondents to the open public consultation agreed that the current MEDIA priorities, with the existing schemes, were still relevant to the challenges of the sector. At the same time, about half of respondents, from across the value chain, suggest that a successor programme from 2021-2027 should adopt new priorities, such as focusing more on audiences, creativity and development, skills, digitalisation in distribution and production, new technologies, social innovation and inclusion as well as gender equality and diversity. 68% of respondents agreed or fully agreed on the fact that MEDIA has contributed to improving the national, European or international support measures for the audiovisual sector. 64% agreed or fully agreed on the fact that MEDIA has contributed to complementing existing actions at national, European, or international level by enabling industry collaboration across borders and across the value chain.

Concerning delivery mechanisms, the great majority of the audiovisual stakeholders (91%) called for an increased budget to maximize the impact of the successor programme. An increased focus on capacity-building activities (60%) was also seen as important. Other suggestions were an increased focus on market instruments (52%) and better defined priorities (51%). A fair share of respondents called for better access for newcomers and increased coordination and synergy with other EU programmes.

The mid-term evaluation also fully took into account the discussions of the European Film Forum (EFF), which was launched in 2015 as a framework for a strategic dialogue with the audiovisual industry. The December 2016 conclusions of the EFF highlighted the transformation of the audiovisual landscape and the new challenges as well as opportunities for the industry. Through the EFF, a number of priority areas of action emerged from the discussions with stakeholders: the need to invest in talent and skills; audiovisual storytelling must embrace innovation; access to content across borders should be further fostered; promotion is key to reaching audiences; financing models need to be reinvented.

Also, a structured dialogue with stakeholders was launched in 2017 to ensure effective delivery of MEDIA support to access and circulation of EU works. This dialogue allowed different technical solutions to be explored, taking into account the realities faced by audiovisual SMEs. Proposals discussed include increasing the focus on promotion costs in order to make European films more visible to their potential audiences. Also, the impact of the support could be increased and the administrative overheads could be minimised by reducing the number of small grants and grouping the grants into one agreement where possible.

Furthermore, a dialogue between Member States was launched in 2017 to improve the circulation of European films is being undertaken through the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), with the support of the Commission.

Justice

The open consultation on the mid-term evaluation of the JUSTICE programme could not be done given that the open consultation on "EU funds in the area of values and mobility" was launched on the 18 of January 2018. However a number of consultations in different format (roundtables, workshops, forum; open online consultations; targeted online surveys or questionnaire) and related to the different policy fields covered by the JUSTICE programme have been done and are summarised below:

On European Judicial training:

A 2017 European Parliament workshop on "The Training of Judges and Legal Practitioners - Ensuring the Full Application of EU Law" highlighted the following key findings:

The European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) good practices in judicial training

The challenges in European judicial training have been identified by EJTN whilst performing its activities. They include in particular the lengthy internal procedures for the appointment of participants to be trained abroad, insufficient dissemination of information about the trainings that are available, lack of recognition of participation in training abroad, absence of international components in the national training curricula, workload, language barriers, lack of correlation between training attended and tasks assigned, and national training schemes/procedures making participation virtually impossible.

Having identified presidents of courts and heads of prosecution offices as the key actors, and at the same time as potential addressees of its training activities, steps were undertaken to tailor training activities for this group as a way to overcome the above-mentioned challenges. One of these specific activities is the exchanges dedicated to judicial leaders.

Key findings on the training of lawyers - Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) training committee

·Training of lawyers is crucial in building a European Judicial Culture.

·Support is needed to boost initial and continuous training initiatives.

·Work is ongoing to promote mutual recognition of training, so as to facilitate cross-border training and to build a truly common European judicial culture.

·Two major training projects have been carried out with EU funding:

oThe creation of a European Training Platform, and

oThe study on the state of play of lawyers’ training in EU law.

The training of court staff and bailiffs at European Union level -European Institute of Public Administration – Luxembourg

Aspects of EU law are becoming more important as more and more EU legislative instruments are being adopted. A practical understanding of the relevance and impact of EU legislation on the daily work of court staff and bailiffs is essential to ensure good quality of justice in the European Union.

Different methods of training have been implemented during continuous training of court staff and bailiffs, such as e-learning, blended learning and face-to-face activities. In addition, tailor made activities to train the trainers in EU law is an optimal solution to guarantee sustainable cross-border cooperation.

Recommendations addressed to the different structures that are responsible for setting the general context and organisation of training of court staff and bailiffs aim to develop national and cross-border cooperation among training providers. To strengthen judicial training in order to guarantee the uniform application of EU law in the European Union, new initiatives must be supported by national judicial authorities as well as European programmes

On awareness activities on the Charter of Fundamental Rights

Following a first high level Conference on the application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights by national practitioners organised by the European Commission in December 2014, a further multi-stakeholder conference on the awareness of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights was also organised by the Dutch Presidency in early 2016. Participants indicated as a priority the need to step up capacity, knowledge and awareness on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights primarily of judges and legal professionals but also of national duty bearers (such as ministries, police, national parliaments). This priority has been reiterated by Council conclusions (last one in time on 12 October 2017  ("The Council recalls the importance of awareness-raising on the application of the Charter at national as well as at EU level among policymakers, legal practitioners and the rights holders themselves".) Currently the Justice Programme only allows to fund awareness and training activities for judges and legal professionals.

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Annex 3: Evaluation results

Rights, Equality and Citizenship

Overall Strategy and Priorities of the REC Programme

The preliminary findings of the 2018 mid-term evaluation of the REC programme LXX show that the problems and drivers underlying the General Objective and Specific Objectives of the REC Programme are still relevant. However, within the SO “Prevent and Combat all Forms of Violence”, there is room for enhancing the focus on emerging needs such as e-violence or domestic violence

The intervention strategy of the Programme is still adequate to achieving the desired objectives and still relevant to the needs of the beneficiaries, as confirmed by the fact that more than 60% of surveyed beneficiaries and stakeholders indicated that funding received is effective to a high or very high extent.

The transnational dimension represents a key feature and an important added value of the European funding for the REC Programme, promoting the exchange of information at EU level as well as mutual learning and the dissemination of practices in the area of protection of rights, citizenship and anti-discrimination. For instance, with regard to the SO on data protection, stakeholders from countries where no initiatives are taken at the national level, consider EU action as necessary since it would be impossible, without the Programme’s support to ensure awareness raising - especially of companies dealing with data protection issues - on the content of the 2016 Data Protection Reform (Regulation (EU) 2016/679). In terms of added value of the REC Programme compared to national policies, eighty-three percent of beneficiaries responding to the relevant question of the survey, believe that the Programme’s funded activities would have not been possible through single Member State action.

Structure and synergies of the REC Programme

There are several areas of complementarities between the objectives and interventions of the REC programme and other EU funded instruments/programmes. These include, for example:

·The Erasmus+ initiative, and its actions in fields such as citizenship and LGBT rights;

·Interventions funded through the European Social Fund under Thematic Objectives 8 and 9 (for what concerns the promotion of gender equality and equal opportunities in the labour market, antidiscrimination and active inclusion of socially vulnerable groups);

·Axis I of the EasI programme (PROGRESS strand) for what concerns social inclusion and the support to mobility and mobile workers in relation to the SO of EU Citizenship.

However, these potential overlap do not necessarily represent a weakness of the overall Intervention Logic – as long as areas of overlapping provide for synergies and complementarities.

Delivery mechanisms of the REC Programme

The typologies of implementing measures (Operating Grants, Action Grants, Direct Grants and Procurement) are in line with the objectives of the Programme and with the needs of stakeholders eligible for support.

Operating Grants represent a key funding source for many organisations benefiting from it and their financial allocation should be maintained. Many organisations, especially NGOs, would prefer a larger EU co-financing rate. The duration of Operating Grants could be extended to cover at least two years (instead of one); this will reduce the administrative burden – in terms of both applying and reporting - on beneficiaries and EC officials alike.

The possibility to use Direct Grants – granted without call for proposals – makes it possible provide a timely response to emergencies as proved by the direct grants provided to international organisations in the area of protection of migrant children. Surveyed beneficiaries suggest that scholarships for specific vulnerable groups (e.g. Roma children) could also be considered with the aim to favour social inclusion through cultural and economic empowerment.

The introduction of standard unit costs, at least for some typologies of activities (e.g. training), could significantly reduce administrative and accounting duties on beneficiaries and on EC officials involved in management and control.

System of indicators

In terms of achievement of indicators, the progress of the indicators from the baseline value of several indicators shows that the target has already been achieved with regard to the perception of consumers of being protected and to the level of consumer confidence in cross-border shopping. The target is likely to be achieved with regard to the number of Europeans aware of their rights if they fall victims of discrimination. In this regard the REC Programme has the potential to contribute to achieving the targets set for the indicators mentioned above if awareness of the rights of victims is sought through adequate training activities of stakeholders in direct contact with victims of violence (i.e. social assistants, police officers, lawyers). The progress of indicators suggest that the target set for the number of Member States that set up structural coordination mechanisms on the implementation of the National Roma Integration Strategies and the share of the population that knows the meaning of “Citizenship of the Union” are likely to be met.

The indicators selected for measuring the achievements of the Programme are overall adequate. However, the field research activities carried out up to now, suggest that the system of indicators can be further enriched so as to capture the whole range of expected results of the Programme. For instance, indicators capturing the improvement brought about by capacity building activities of public institutions’ staff, and NGOs in preventing non-discrimination, or in tackling cases of violence could be added. With specific regard to the data protection SO, given the strong link between REC activities and the awareness and compliance with the 2016 Data Protection Reform, the level of awareness of the changes introduced by the Reform or the number of civil servants and companies participating in training on how to comply with the new regulation could be monitored.

Europe for citizens

According to a number of evaluations and studies (ECOTEC, ECORYS, Euréval, Coffey International, Deloitte LXXI ) carried out in the last 10 years, including the mid-term evaluation of the current programme LXXII  the Europe for Citizens programme makes a strong impact on several levels:

·a very positive impact on those who participate in the projects in terms of their European values such as feeling more European, feeling more solidarity with fellow Europeans and feeling more part of the European Union (77% of participants in the activities funded by the programme feel more solidarity with fellow Europeans and 69% feel more European).

·a relevant transformative impact in terms of attitudes and perceptions of citizens who participate in the programme activities as they develop understanding of other cultures and enhanced tolerance towards the others (92% of participants in the activities funded by the programme confirm that they learned more about people’s lives in the countries of other participants, 77% learned more about European issues such as history, politics and culture).

·a strong multiplier effect and capacity building effect on civil society organisations manifested through the extension and the scale and scope of activities but also through promoting innovation and knowledge sharing (88% of participants in the activities funded by the programme intend to talk to other people about their experience and 84% intend to take part in more events that strengthen links between different EU Member States).

·impetus to the town twinning movement to think in broader European terms and developing links with themes or policy areas such as remembrance and civic participation;

·allowing policy research organisations to consider European dimensions of the issues they address as well as developing their European networks, partnerships and debates;

·positive contribution to the European culture of remembrance based on critical reflection (80% of participants in the activities supported by the programme feel more aware of a shared European culture, identity and heritage).

·contributing to the development of European public space.

At least 1 100 000 citizens per year have been directly reached by Europe for Citizens since 2013. During the same period, about 5 million citizens have been indirectly impacted by the programme. LXXIII

Results of the mid-term evaluation of the Europe for Citizens programme

The mid-term evaluation of the Europe for Citizens programme 2014-2020 LXXIV showed that the programme plays a positive overall role in encouraging civic participation and democratic engagement, while strengthening the sense of belonging together and supporting mutual understanding and identification with Europe, thereby helping to support the European integration process in the longer term. By working directly with citizens, the programme offers a forum for involving European citizens through a grassroots approach.

The European for Citizens Programme 2014-2020 was proposed in 2012 to address a crisis of confidence and limited trust in the EU institutions by promoting a greater sense of belonging to the European Union and explaining the achievements of European integration. Thus the objectives of the programme, i.e. to contribute to citizens’ understanding of the Union, its shared history and diversity on the one hand, and to foster European citizenship and improve conditions for civic and democratic participation at the Union level, on the other, were and remain relevant to the problems to be addressed since the needs it was designed to contribute to addressing are still relevant.

Together, the activities under both strands provide a continuum for understanding the past, present and future, and the role European integration has played and is playing in shaping them. The two strands are not only complementary but mutually supportive, on the basis of the connection between lessons learned from the past and plans made for the future of Europe.

The high number of direct and indirect participants reached by Europe for Citizens illustrates that the programmes has been effective at a relatively low cost. At the same time, the high demand from grant applicants shows that there is scope for additional funding as requested by stakeholders consulted during the evaluation.

The programme’s structure, with two strands and a cross-cutting measure on valorisation has proved to work efficiently and both operating and action grants have helped deliver the desired outcomes. The simplification measures carried out since 2014 have brought important improvements in terms of user-friendliness.

Europe for Citizens has demonstrated its added value at EU level both in its impact on participants and its role as a complement to other EU funding programmes and policy initiatives in the field of education, culture and EU citizenship.

Aspects that have been identified for improvement relate in particular to the increase of the programme's visibility, the revision of the monitoring indicators and the strengthening of synergies with other relevant EU funding programmes and initiatives. Indeed while synergies are already developed in some areas, for example in the establishment of the VALOR platform LXXV , or through occasional cooperation of Europe for Citizens Contact Points, the Creative Europe Desks and Erasmus+ National Agencies, the mid-term evaluation shows that the programme can further benefit more coordinated approach with other relevant programmes in the future.

Creative Europe

As required by the legal base of the Creative Europe programme the Commission has carried out a mid-term evaluation of the programme, covering also the ex-post evaluation of its predecessor programmes (Media 2007, Culture 2007-2013 and Media Mundus). The evaluation covers the implementation of the Creative Europe programme, its predecessor programmes and all their sub-programmes, in the territory of all countries which are eligible to be programme beneficiaries. The evaluation contains a Staff Working Document based on an external and independent evaluation as well as thematic studies, a wide range of data sources and stakeholder dialogue, including an online public consultation. Its findings have fed and informed the present impact assessment.

The findings of the 2017 independent evaluation state that Creative Europe objectives of supporting transnational collaboration, cross-border circulation of EU works and strengthening the financial capacity of cultural and creative SMEs remain highly relevant to the main challenges of the Cultural and Creative Sectors (CCS). Overall, Creative Europe has met its objectives and generally responded to the needs of the CCS. However, more needs to be done to fully reap the opportunities offered by the digital shift (e.g. digital creation and distribution, reinforced engagement with audiences, accessing new markets or big data).

The European added value of Creative Europe derives primarily from the transnational character of its actions which complements the national focus of Member States. Exchanges, networks and partnerships are at the core of the beneficial effects of Creative Europe. They have had a long-term structuring effect on the capacity of all CCS to work together.

Creative Europe has contributed to delivering the EU policy agenda, stimulating investment and job creation and deepening the internal market, especially through greater circulation of creative content. Yet these results could have been much larger with more funding.

The MEDIA and Culture sub-programmes were found coherent internally. The Guarantee Facility has enhanced the overall coherence of the programme, but the limited budget of the cross-sectoral strand has had a restricted impact.

The management and execution of the programme by the EACEA was found effective. Surveys from the EACEA revealed a high level of satisfaction, while the error rate has constantly been low. Additional gains have been made by e-applications and use of lump sums.

The 2017 mid-term evaluation found that MEDIA has several strengths. In particular MEDIA has met its specific objectives of supporting transnational collaboration and cross-border circulation of EU works. It has helped develop films with the potential to travel, in particular co-productions, by providing seed-funding at pre-production stage. MEDIA has sustained an internal market for non-national European films by supporting the cross-border distribution of over 400 films per year, equivalent to 25% of Europe's annual film production. However, MEDIA should improve the promotion and visibility of European works in Europe and abroad. Currently, out of more than 1,700 films produced in Europe each year, less than half travel outside their national territory. On average, European films are released in only 4 countries, while US films are released in 10. More collaborative distribution and promotion strategies covering multiple territories are therefore needed. European VOD services need to scale up at European level, as they currently operate only at national or regional level. This will help the presence of European works online, taking into account that currently only 47% of EU films released in theatres are available on VOD platforms versus 87% of US films.

MEDIA has supported cultural and linguistic diversity by promoting a genre called 'European cinema', but also by creating an appetite for diverse 'European' content. Films receiving MEDIA distribution support reached over 65 million admissions per year (not including admissions on national markets). The Europa Cinemas network has boosted the exhibition of European films in a cost-effective way, with every € 1 invested generating an estimated €13 of revenue through additional audiences. Through its support MEDIA has concretely widened the access European audiences and citizens to culturally diverse content.

MEDIA is recognized as a quality brand by the industry. MEDIA-supported films have achieved international recognition by winning prizes in the world's major film festivals. Success stories include Oscar winners for Best Foreign Language Film from 2013-2016 and winning the Palme d'Or from the Cannes Film Festival 8 times since 2007.

However, the evaluation has also identified a number of issues. As regards priorities, more needs to be done to respond to help industry adapt to the digital shift, be more competitive and fully engage with audiences, thereby supporting cultural diversity. Collaboration between parts of the value chain and across borders, to work together in response to digitization and globalization, should be encouraged more. In particular, promotion will play a strategic role in connecting with audiences and innovative strategies are needed which bring together authors, producers, sales agents, distributors and platforms.

As regards delivery, the evaluation found that the budget is too low to have a lasting impact on the EU film market,, with an annual amount of € 105 million compared to an estimated value of the sector of € 17 billion. Also, the budget is spread too thinly amongst thousands of beneficiaries, thus preventing the scaling up of projects. The programme is itself fragmented into 14 separate schemes, which limits flexibility in the design of support actions. In order to strengthen coherence and complementarity with Member State funds, collaboration, including joint actions, could be increased.

The mid-term evaluation found that the Creative and Cultural Sectors Guarantee Facility responds directly to the needs of SMEs in the sector, which have specific difficulties accessing loans. The top-up of the budget from EFSI allowed a quicker deployment of guarantee support, reaching more countries and sectors and enhancing the geographic and sectoral balance.

JUSTICE

Overall Strategy and Priorities of the Justice Programme

The preliminary results of the 2018 mid-term evaluation show that the Justice Programme has delivered high European Added Value. This is true for both the General Objective of the Programme, namely the development of a European area of justice based on mutual recognition and mutual trust, and for its SOs. Beneficiaries agreed that providing Judicial Training at the European level is essential to the creation of a European area of Justice and for the smooth and coordinated enforcement of EU law. In turn, the actions fostered by the Judicial Training SO are considered sustainable since they foster the acquisition of durable legal knowledge and competencies, while at the same time providing for networking opportunities and occasions to build trust among judicial staff of different MS.

There is also convergence on the fact that the Programme was highly relevant with respect to both its general objective and the needs of specific target groups. In some areas, the basin of potential recipients of the actions could be expanded. For instance, in the field of Judicial Training, stakeholders from national administrative bodies and regulatory agencies could be included in a more systematic way, since such stakeholders oftentimes are tasked with giving execution to legislation, and should thus be considered a key stakeholder of the Programme. However the inclusion of this category of stakeholders in future programmes would require a change in the legal basis currently underpinning the Justice Programme. Overall, ca. 90% of Justice Programme beneficiaries stated that the Programme is relevant in meeting the needs of their respective target groups, and about two thirds of them declared that the scope of calls is highly relevant to the work of their respective organisations.

Structure and synergies of the Justice Programme

Several areas of overlap with other EU funded instruments/programmes exist. The instruments most relevant to the Justice Programme include:

·The ISF-Police and the Health for Growth Programme, with reference to drugs policies;

·Connecting Europe Facility (managed by DG CONNECT), relative to the E-Justice Portal;

·COSME, for the dissemination of civic & legal technology;

·The REC Programme, the Education and Culture Programme (DG EAC), the European Social Fund and OLAF Hercule (amongst others) concerning Judicial Training;

·Fiscalis 2020 and Customs 2020 concerning the training of law enforcement authorities and cooperation among relevant national agencies. These programmes also support for the development to the European Public Prosecutors Office, which receives significant funding from the Justice Programme.

Aside from minor cases (relative for instance to actions also funded by CEF), little to no risk of overlap was observed, as the e-grant platform used by the DGs of the EC is an efficient instrument to detect such situations and remedy them.

There seems to be scope for further centralisation in terms of Judicial Training for legal practitioners, as this is provided through a number of different programmes which might result in duplication and lack of coordination.

Finally, in the future Programming Period it could be useful to expand the range of activities covered by the “judicial training” SO also to candidate countries and countries within the scope of the European Neighbourhood Policy (particularly Eastern Partnership members). This is currently not possible under the existing legal basis of the Programme, though from an operational standpoint it would not be difficult to expand the reach of the training, as for instance the EJTN already counts judicial institutions from several third countries as associated members.

Delivery Mechanisms of the Justice Programme

The delivery mechanisms (in terms of operating grants, action grants, direct grants and procurement actions) are adequate to pursue the objectives of the Programme. Survey outcomes indicate that a number of beneficiaries think that it would be value-adding to introduce re-granting/sub-granting options. The rationale behind this is that small organisations (especially charities and NGOs, which represent the largest share of programme applicants) may not have the necessary administrative capacity to apply to grants and manage the funding, but might have specific operational capacities needed to achieve the goals of the calls. However introducing such tools within the Justice Programme could prove complex, as analyses have shown that the number of organisations might be too small to warrant such schemes.

In order to allow for longer-term planning, beneficiaries suggested that Work Programmes of Operating Grants within Framework Partnership Agreements might be extended to two or more years.

Beneficiaries also mentioned that it could be useful to expand the maximum duration of projects beyond two years, and even beyond 30 months, as many stakeholders (such as universities) prefer to establish research collaborations lasting 3+ years.

Sustainability could be fostered by levering IT tools more effectively: for instance, developing a centralised database of project outputs. However, existing tools already make it possible to disseminate specific project outputs at the European level, such as the judicial training section of the e-Justice portal.

Two-thirds of survey respondents mentioned the need to foster cooperation, mutual learning and capacity-building within the Programme.

Certain budget parameters were mentioned by multiple beneficiaries as being quite limiting. A key example here is the criterion that only travel beyond 100 km may be reimbursed, which is seen as constraining factor especially in smaller MS or in areas with fewer connections and public transport. Another example relates to indirect costs (overheads), which are limited to 7% of total eligible direct costs, which was often compared unfavourably to H2020, where a 25% limit is present.

Beneficiaries reported that administrative requests to justify the involved staff are very time demanding. A "lump sum approach" or standard cost options for each staff category might be more effective and would reduce the time devoted to gather documents from partners to justify the real costs of staff involved. The fact that different DGs use different IT systems for the management of the same Programme is also viewed as a common problem.

There is a need to further improve communication activities, also with a view to foster participation from organisations in MS with relatively low participation rates. Beneficiaries pointed out that dissemination could also be encouraged by fostering mutual collaboration between funded projects.

System of indicators

In terms of achievement of indicators, the progress of the indicators from the baseline value of several indicators shows that the targets are close to being achieved been achieved with regard to the indicators concerning judicial training, such as the cumulative number of legal professionals receiving training (not only through the Programme) on EU law or law of another MS, including Civil Justice, Criminal Justice and Fundamental Rights (700,000 by 2020).

In this regard, the Justice Programme has provided the single greatest contribution to achieving the training targets set for 2020. The number of judicial staff trained yearly in the Justice Programme stands at about 14,000 as of 2016 (2017 data as of yet not available), with a goal of reaching 20,000 by 2020.

The indicators selected for measuring the achievements of the Programme are overall adequate. However, data quality considerations can also be factor: there is for example the issue of double counting of recipients of training activities. Indicators also reflect the strong IT component of the Programme, focusing on ECRIS and the e-Justice Portal.

Annex 4: The current spending programmes

The Rights, Equality and Citizenship programme 2014-2020

Since 2014, the REC Programme LXXVI has been used to promote and protect rights and empower people and to promote non-discrimination and equality so that persons are entitled to enjoy in the Union the rights conferred on them by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and the Treaty on European Union (TEU), as well as by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In doing so, the Programme has contributed to the promotion of EU values including the respect for human dignity, fundamental rights, non-discrimination, tolerance, solidarity and gender equality, and to supporting a reinforced EU citizenship. The Programme contributes to upholding these EU values and to supporting the Commission's role in this respect. Thanks to the implementation of the EU policy mix of legislation, policy measures and funding, progress is visible in the promotion and protection of rights and values as shown by following examples:

·Preventing and combating all forms of violence against women, young people and children (known by the stakeholders as 'Daphne'), the most funded specific objective, has been a success for twenty years now LXXVII , both in terms of its popularity and effectiveness of the funded actions. The protection and support standards for victims have improved. This is observed indirectly through the higher reporting of violence in the Member States, the lower acceptance of violence in the society LXXVIII and better victims' services in place.

·Actions in the area of the rights of the child have tested new approaches, enhanced cooperation and coordination in line with the 2011 EU Agenda for the Rights of the Child, especially in the area of child-friendly justice and the protection of children in vulnerable situations, including in migration.

·The Programme supports actions to promote the rights of persons with disabilities and non-discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, age, disability and sexual orientation, funding transnational activities and civil society organisations. Roma National Platforms were set up in 21 Member States.

·The Programme has supported projects in the area of preventing and combating racism, xenophobia, homophobia and other forms of intolerance - with specific priorities set on anti-semitism, anti-muslim hatred and countering online hate speech.

·In gender equality, the programme supports the Strategic engagement for gender equality 2016-2019 LXXIX . Projects have contributed for instance to a better gender balance in economic decision-making positions LXXX , to the fight against gender stereotypes and the pay gap, to promote work-life balance, mainly through analytical studies, active work with target groups, the creation of a Commission database on women and men in decision-making and exchanges of good practices showcasing different models. All these activities paved the way to the Commission's legislative proposals on women on boards and on work-life balance LXXXI .

·Several projects supported the inclusion of mobile EU citizens and their political and societal participation. In addition, an e-learning tool on free movement was established in order to help front desk officers in local administrations to better understand the rights and obligations associated with EU citizens' rights free movement and thus to improve the practical application of EU rules. In 2016 EUR 2.5 million were set aside for fostering successful inclusion and participation of mobile EU citizens in their host country LXXXII .

·The Programme has supported the recent EU data protection reform LXXXIII through studies on key aspects of the legislation, building a network of Member States' experts, supporting the functioning of the network of national Data Protection Authorities.

·The programme supports the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020 LXXXIV . Actions to protect the rights of persons with disabilities comprise among other, training judges and prosecutors on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, launching the European Disability Card, supporting a network of academic experts, organising the European Day of Persons with Disabilities and the Access City Award as well as supporting EU-level networks of disability organisations LXXXV .

The total financial envelope for the REC programme for the 2014-2020 period is 438 € million euros.

The REC programme is implemented via direct centralised management which has proven essential to have a close relationship between the programme management and EU policy-making, contributing to the alignment of budget implementation with EU policy priorities in line with the "budget for result" approach. In fact, this management mode allows DG JUST & DG EMPL to tailor funded activities to policy priorities and policy needs and to target directly the relevant groups of stakeholders. It also allows a close contact with the programmes' beneficiaries and better knowledge of the needs on the ground, as well as the possibility to use innovative activities funded by the Programme as input for the EU policy making.

Three types of actions are funded: Specific trans-national projects of EU interest (Action Grants), actions to support to the activities of non-governmental organisations or other entities pursuing an aim of general European interest (Operating Grants) and specific actions taken by the Commission, such as studies, surveys, conferences, specific IT projects etc. (Commission initiatives).

Interaction, synergies with other instruments/programmes

Prerogative line covering activities related to consular protection and to the Charter of fundamental rights

Information, communication and evaluation activities linked to the Charter of Fundamental Right, consular protection and the dialogue pursuant to Article 17TFEU are financed through a prerogative line. The annual Colloquium on Fundamental rights which aims at improving mutual cooperation and greater political engagement for the promotion and protection of fundamental rights has been supported through this line since 2015.

Europe for Citizens programme 2014-2020

The Europe for Citizens programme (2014-2020) contributes to the overall aim of bringing the European Union closer to citizens. Its general objectives are to contribute to citizens' understanding of the Union, its history and diversity and to foster European citizenship and to improve conditions for civic and democratic participation at Union level.

At least 1 100 000 citizens per year have been directly reached by the EfCP since 2013. During the same period, about 5 million citizens have been indirectly impacted by the programme.

In general, the Europe for Citizens programme has proven to be an efficient and proven tool of engaging European citizens in the European project, in stimulating interest in and identification with the European Union and in supporting capacity of civil society in the EU.

·Through town twinning, the EfCP encourages citizens to discuss European policies in a bottom-up approach, with a focus on multi-annual thematic priorities. At the same time town twinning allows for cultural exchange between participants. Networks of towns increase the impact of the activities, as the cooperation of the twinning town is done on a longer term perspective.

·Remembrance activities and critical reflection on Europe’s historical memory have made citizens aware of the common history, as the foundation for a common future and shared values. It has allowed for networking and fostering of partnerships between grassroots initiatives and major European and international memorial, cultural and educational organisations. As a consequence it contributed to exchange of best practice in the areas critical for European memory and remembrance such as Holocaust education and remembrance.

·With regards to civil society organisations, operating grants help ensuring independent voices for EU-level debates and cultivate expertise. Action grants are awarded to civil society organisations forming partnerships with counterparts in other Member States, building their capacity and international experience and, in some cases, forming sustainable networks. Civil society projects reach out to a large number of citizens through events, information material, and (social) media.

·The Europe for Citizens programme applies a bottom-up approach reaching out to citizens and offering them a forum to bring in their ideas for the future of the European Union.

The total budget of the 2014-2020 programme reaches 187 468 000 EUR. As per the regulation, the programme is implemented through action grants and operating grants. To be noted that the size of action grants is relatively small (example: up to 100 000 EUR for remembrance projects, up to 25 000 EUR for town twinning).

The Europe for Citizen programme is managed centrally by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), which provides considerable economy of scale in terms of administration and human resources.

The Europe for Citizens National Contact Points ensure the promotion of and information about the programme in all Member States and other participating countries.

The Civil Dialogue with European civil society organisations initiated by the programme and involving a broad range of organisations has proven to be a strong network capable to represent concerns and positions of EU citizens.

Substantial simplification measures such as lump sums and flat rates, e-form application and grant decisions have been introduced in the current Europe for Citizens programme.

The Europe for Citizens programme is consistent with other EU policies and tools dedicated to increasing EU citizens’ participation in EU civil society and is in line with other instruments in the areas of volunteering, youth, research and innovation. It complements other EU funding programmes, notably Erasmus+, the European Solidarity Corps, Creative Europe’s Culture sub-programme and the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 by adding a focus on participation and a strong emphasis on citizens and societal aspects of the EU.

the Creative Europe Programme 2014-2020

Creative Europe promotes cultural and linguistic diversity and the competitiveness of the cultural and creative sectors, in particular the audio-visual sector, by supporting transnational collaboration of artists and creative professionals, facilitating the access of EU content across the Union and strengthening the financial capacity of cultural and creative SMEs.

The programme brings under a single common framework two sub-programmes and one cross sectoral strand, These are: a) MEDIA, addressed to the audio-visual sector, b) Culture, addressed to all the other cultural and creative sectors (CCS); c) a cross sectoral strand, addressed to all cultural and creative sectors, which includes a dedicated debt financial instrument for the CCS and a support to Creative Europe desks. Since 2014, Creative Europe has supported European creators and contributed to the promotion of EU cultural and linguistic diversity, thereby transmitting knowledge and values, which are conditions for healthy democracies and creative, resilient and inclusive societies. Creative Europe has also supported CCS as ambassadors of 'European-ness', forging a dynamic image of an attractive and creative Europe open to talents from across the world and to an intercultural dialogue thus contributing to growth, job creation and innovation.

a) The MEDIA Programme (abbreviation from French: Mesures pour l'encouragement et le développement de l'industrie audiovisuelle) was launched in 1991 to strengthen Europe's audiovisual industry by encouraging collaboration between independent film, television and, more recently, VOD players across Europe. Its aim is to help the European audiovisual industry grow and capture new audiences in a sector being transformed by new technologies and intense international competition, in particular from the US. The programme has supported the development of thousands of films and the creation of TV programmes, their international distribution and promotion. It has structured collaboration between professionals across the value chain (production, distribution, cinema exhibition, video on demand platforms, film festival and markets) and provided high quality training for thousands of producers, directors and screenwriters.

For the 2014-2020 period, MEDIA represents 56% of the Creative Europe budget and its annual budget varies from € 103 mio in 2014 to nearly € 116 mio in 2020. Its support has addressed several priorities over this period.

The training of professionals has aimed at building their capacity to be competitive at a European level, harness new technologies and manage their businesses. About 70 initiatives for the training of more than 2200 professionals are financed per year. Innovative training actions such as the Berlinale Talents are highly appreciated as they make a real difference to professionals’ career development.

MEDIA also supports the creation of content through the development of films (script writing, research, trailers, finding partners) as well as the contributing to production of TV programmes, including drama, fiction and animation. Over 400 films are developed per year through MEDIA. Support to content represents about 30 % of MEDIA support. MEDIA supported films have won critical acclaim at major film festivals in Europe and beyond. 42 films supported by the MEDIA programme have been awarded top prizes since 1991 at the Cannes Film Festival. TV series supported include "The Bridge" which was part of the "Nordic noir" trend popular with audiences across Europe.

Supporting distribution is a top priority as it increases the possibilities for independent European films to go beyond the domestic market and travel across Europe. Also, a network of cinemas specialising in non-national European films is supported to increase the possibilities of reaching wider audiences. I, Daniel Blake (Palme d'Or 2016), Toni Erdman and Julieta, were the top three most successful films in the Network in 2016. Also, the promotion of European works online has been specifically targeted to develop new distribution models capable of reaching audiences online. Altogether, support to distribution and exhibition represents about 50 % of the MEDIA budget.

Support to markets has helped create fora for pitching and co-productions. MIFA, the market of the Annecy Festival, is the largest animation market in the world, gathering over 2,800 professionals each year. Support to Festivals and film education activities have aimed at the demand side of the market in order to stimulate awareness and appreciation of European cinema and build the audiences of the future.

b) Culture 2014-2020 (within the Creative Programme 2014-2020)

The Culture sub-programme accounts for 31% of the current Creative Europe budget and provides critical support to the diversity of cultures across Europe. It contributes to achieve the European Agenda for Culture’s societal, economic and international objectives.

Over 2014-2020 Culture will have been instrumental in facilitating mutual understanding, stimulating creativity, and contributing to the mutual enrichment of our cultures. It will have helped thousands of cultural organisations to create and implement cultural and artistic projects improving the knowledge and dissemination of European cultural heritage, cultural exchanges, artistic creation, and literary translation. It will have also given recognition to major European cultural achievements through European prizes in architecture, literature, cultural heritage and music as well as the European Capitals of Culture.

Until 2016, it is estimated that the cooperation projects funded under the sub-programme reach an average of 1 million people per year, including 55% youngsters. Each project supports the transnational mobility of 1,363 cultural and creative players on average, meaning a total of 287,600 mobility experiences. The number of mobility experiences provided by networks funded by the sub-programme in 2014 is 3,462 (against 1,841 planned) or around 10,300 in total, exceeding the target by 88%. Over the three-year period 2014-2016, around 1500 translations will have been supported by the sub-programme and it is estimated that the number of sold copies will have reached 1.4 million (either as hard printed copies or e-books).

The European Border Breaker Awards (EBBA) have rewarded promising pop musicians: they showcased Adele or Stromae before they became global brands. The same goes for the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award, rewarding European iconic buildings.

On average, a European Capital of Culture attracts around 2 million people. The record number is 11 million (Marseille-Provence 2013). Each euro of public money invested in Mons 2015 (Belgium) is estimated to have generated 6€ for the local economy. On average, Capitals experience a rise of 12 % in tourism figures.

But Creative Europe could not cater for certain specific needs such as the music industry, which in Europe employed 1,2 million people and generated €5.27 billion in 2016. Europe is a strong global player all along the value chain, including online distribution. Streaming revenues grow extremely rapidly; compensating declines in physical formats and downloads. However, 50% of top tracks in Europe remain American, evidencing a market failure similar to that experienced by the film industry.

c) The Cultural and Creative Sectors Guarantee Facility responds to the needs of cultural and creative SMEs which have more difficulties in accessing loans due to the nature of their business, the difficulty to evaluate intangible assets or an uncertain demand. The strong market response to its launch in 2016 shows the relevance of this instrument to addressing the financing gap, estimated at € 1 billion annually. The Guarantee includes a capacity building programme, to help the financial sector improve its understanding of the creative sectors.

The Guarantee Facility was allocated a budget of €121 mio for the period 2014-2020, representing 19% of the Creative Europe budget. Given its success, the Commission decided to top up its budget by €60 million of EFSI resources in 2017. A further top-up of EFSI resources of at least the same amount is envisaged in 2018.

The Facility is managed through a delegation agreement with the EIF.

The Creative Europe Programme is implemented via direct management with the bulk of the activity externalised to the executive agency EACEA. MEDIA support is delivered through grants and is organized through 14 support schemes which are implemented through calls for proposals. Each annual Work Programme leads to about 18 calls for proposals.

Beneficiaries are SMEs in the audiovisual sector and grants typically vary from € 50,000 for development to up to € 1 mio for TV production support. In 2016 the Agency made 1,596 commitments for 1,983 projects. It completed altogether 3 424 payment transactions.

Priorities for MEDIA in the next programming period :

The AVMS Directive coordinates national legislations on audiovisual media services protecting children and consumers, prohibiting incitement to hatred, fostering European works (quota and prominence requirements) and safeguarding the independence of national media regulators. The MEDIA programme will accompany the industrial and cultural objectives pursued by the provisions of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. For this purpose it will be crucial that in a more open and competitive digital single market funds favour the scaling up and consolidation of the EU audiovisual industries. This means in practice, focusing on those projects and actions bearing a potential for cross-border success and stepping up investments in the promotion of EU works, in line with the requirements set out in the AVMSD Directive.

Europe needs to invest more in its audiovisual talent. The impact of these actions goes beyond the individual benefits provided to young and consolidated professionals and contributes to make Europe a global player in key growing industrial activities such as production and shooting of films, post production, visual effects. LXXXVI Currently, 1800 professionals sharpen their skills in training programmes supported by MEDIA, with a total budget of 7 M€. Priority will be given to help 5000 young or established professionals per annum, understand the impact of new technologies on production processes, marketing and distribution, through physical and on-line training, (MOOCs) for wider reach and mentoring activities to ultimately make the EU audiovisual industry more competitive.

Development is key not only for script writing but for increasing the commercial potential of films LXXXVII In the future , support will be clarified and cater on the one hand, for single development for projects from smaller markets to ensure diversity and on the other, support will be provided to slates of films and individual high profile European films and TV series able to compete with US major productions in the European and global markets LXXXVIII . Likewise, taking into account the appeal, success among audiences, impact on public opinions and the strategic importance in the market share of broadcasters and VOD services priority will be given to support more high quality TV fiction projects LXXXIX while ensuring greater geographical and linguistic diversity. XC  

VR is the fourth digital transformation. New actions will be developed to support innovative story telling formats and in particular virtual reality, to help champion a leading European VR ecosystem XCI .

Distribution of works across borders support will be reinforced and made more efficient XCII , by bringing closer together online and theatrical distribution and enhancing cross border collaboration. Support will be devoted to a targeted selection of films as well as to the distribution of slates of films. A selection of 25 European films per annum will be supported through transnational consortia of professionals from across the value chain to maximise audience outreach. Support to the distribution of film slates will primarily fund promotional activities to increase the visibility of the films with their target audiences. Funding will focus on those films with a strong potential to reach audiences with the aim of reaching 100 million cinema admissions through a total support budget of € 50 million.

Support to VOD platforms will move from individual support XCIII to a structured network of European VOD services thereby encouraging strategic collaboration among the different platforms regarding technology, data collection and management promotional activities and possibly strategies of acquisitions of rights. The objective is to increase the amount of SVOD subscribers by 200% and TVOD transactions by 50%. The revamped support will enable to collect data on VOD transactions and, increase transparency on the market. To achieve this objective a min of 10 M€ per year is needed.

These objectives should be facilitated by suitable tools to be supported by MEDIA such as the Directory of European films and the subtitling database XCIV to facilitate cross border access.

Europa cinemas is a consolidated pan European network of cinema theatres, bringing together more than 1,100 European cinemas (nearly 3,000 screens) in 43 countries. With more than 78 million annual admissions for European films, it plays a key role in connecting EU content with audiences. Enhanced support will be provided to double the reach of the network in medium sized towns with fewer than 100.000 residents XCV (from 269 cities in 2016 to 400 in 2027) especially in Eastern countries; to promote EU films among young audiences XCVI and foster collaborations to innovate the cinematic experience.

Film festivals, including in line Festivals, are an excellent way to promote European films across the EU XCVII . They also have an important role in audience development, training and film education. Support will be enhanced and streamlined by replacing current individual support by a structured pan European network of festivals , make them work together to reach economies of scale and expand their audience development activities especially among young people. The objective is to provide support to more than 100 festivals and reach audience of 10 million in 2027 XCVIII .

Europe is an audio-visual production giant but has not yet reached its full export potential XCIX . Structured promotion support will enhance the commercial success of the European films which have a clear export potential in markets such as the US, Asia (China) and Latin America.

Policy support will be streamlined through the mainstreaming of the audivisual policy line and the inclusion of activities currently funded under the current cross sectorial strand of the Creative Europe programme (e.g. European Audiovisual Observatory),

Audiovisual prerogative lines and multimedia actions C

Healthy democracies, including the EU as a whole, need media as a cornerstone of well-informed EU citizens and a participative public discourse. Media freedom and pluralism are fundamental rights enshrined in Article 11 of the EU charter of Fundamental rights. The Commission has been working on a number of actions in the media sector so as to, in the words of the Budgetary Authority, "allow citizens to make full use of their right to be informed about and involved in European policies". Actions in the media domain related to the AVMS Directive or not are translated into strengthening independent media reporting about EU affairs through the funding line of the Multimedia Actions, but also into promoting quality journalism, defending a free and pluralistic media environment and improving media literacy, as key elements of healthy democracies. These actions were not part of any programme to this date, but stemmed from the Commission's prerogatives. They were managed through ad-hoc standalone lines and/or as pilot project at the initiative of the EP.

The Multimedia Actions budget in the current MFF represented EUR 136,9 Mio in the current MFF (2014-2020), which represented a decrease of 27% compared with the previous one.

The budget under the institutional prerogative line of audiovisual policy is intended to cover the following measures:

·the implementation of the Directive 2010/13/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 March 2010 on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States concerning the provision of audiovisual media services (Audiovisual Media Services Directive) (OJ L 95, 15.4.2010, p. 1),

·the monitoring of the evolution of the media sector, including pluralism and freedom of the media and media literacy,

·the collection and dissemination of economic and legal information and analysis concerning the audiovisual sector and converging media and content industries.

It is also intended to cover expenditure on studies, meetings of experts, information and publications directly linked to the achievement of the objective of the measures coming under this article, and any other expenditure on technical and administrative assistance not involving public authority tasks outsourced by the Commission under ad hoc service contracts.

The financial programming is as follows:

·2014: EUR 1.020.000

·2015: EUR 1.040.000

·2016: EUR 1.061.000

·2017: EUR 1.126.000

·2018: EUR 1.104.000

·2019: EUR 1.126.000

·2020: EUR 1.148.000

The Justice Programme 2014 - 2020

Since 2014, the Justice Programme CI has contributed to upholding and promoting the Union's common values and to creating an area of freedom, security and justice, supporting judicial cooperation based on mutual recognition and the enforcement of judicial decisions, promoting the action of the Member States in the field of crime prevention, supporting the respect of the rule of law and fundamental rights and a well-functioning independent judicial system. The Programme contributes directly to the Juncker priority aimed at establishing an area of justice built on respect of fundamental rights and mutual trust. Justice and its underlying principles are closely connected with European values: the respect of the Rule of Law, which is one of the Union's core values implies an independent judiciary operating in an efficient and quality justice system, in which crimes are effectively prosecuted; the independence of the judiciary, which is a requirement stemming from the common constitutional traditions of all Member States, and from the right to an effective remedy before a tribunal, as enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights (Article 47); the effectiveness of justice systems, which is necessary to defend fundamental rights and freedoms, guaranteed by EU law, in particular access to justice by suspects and victims; access to justice is an essential element of the area of freedom, security and justice without which, many rights cannot be effectively protected.

Funded actions brought significant results including for instance:

·Since 2011, the programme funded several projects promoting judicial cooperation in civil matter to contribute to the correct implementation of several instruments in particular the Victim's Rights Directive, or the Procedural Rights' Directives, that was in particular supported via capacity-building for professionals, multi-disciplinary cooperation, exchange of good practices, dissemination and awareness-raising activities.

·The Programme supports the European network of national human rights bodies aiming at protecting and promoting fundamental rights at national level, as well as the network representing the supreme courts, judges and councils for the judiciary.

·In criminal justice, the Programme funded projects fighting radicalisation in prisons. The Programme finances the cooperation with the Council of Europe to set up a network of prison monitoring bodies and an annual report on prison statistics. The European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS), a decentralised electronic exchange of criminal records between national authorities financed by the Programme, has increased six times the number of exchanges between 2012 and 2016.

·Funding devoted to judicial training reached almost 500.000 legal practitioners in 2015 (the 2020 objective is to train 700.000). In 2015, almost 12.000 legal practitioners were trained through the Programme, its projects and the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN).

·The Programme supports the EU Justice Scoreboard that presents an annual comparative overview of the effectiveness of Member State justice systems and funded the development of the e-Justice Portal that facilitates citizens' access to justice. Every year an increase in number of hits by users can be observed (in 2016 more than 3.8 million hits, six times as compared to 2012).

The total financial envelope for the Justice programme for the 2014-2020 period is 368 € million euros.

The Justice programme is implemented via direct centralised management which has proven essential to have a close relationship between the programme management and EU policy-making, contributing to the alignment of budget implementation with EU policy priorities in line with the "budget for result" approach. In fact, this management mode allows DG JUST to tailor funded activities to policy priorities and policy needs and to target directly the relevant groups of stakeholders. It also allows a close contact with the programmes' beneficiaries and better knowledge of the needs on the ground, as well as the possibility to use innovative activities funded by the Programme as input for the EU policy making.

The support to national administrations through restricted calls for proposals for action grants is an essential part of the programmes as well as the support to Civil Society Organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations (CSOs/NGOs) through operating grants, in particular, in the current political climate of questioning the rule of law and the independence of the justice system in some EU Member States.

Interaction, synergies with other instruments/programmes :

Annex 5: The legal basis of the future programmes

Annex 6 : Policy documents from EU institutions

RIGHTS EQUALITY and CITIZENSHIP

The European institutions have stressed the importance of developing those policies covered by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme on numerous occasions. Before its launch in 2014, various acts adopted the Council and the European Parliament underlined the general need to combat discrimination, xenophobia and homophobia, to foster and support gender equality and to protect vulnerable groups such as Roma, women and children from any forms of oppression or violence. Since the beginning of its implementation, then, the institutions have continued to address these issues and repeatedly referred to the REC programme in corresponding policy documents:

·Council Conclusions of 11 December 2014 on Gender equality in the EU: the way forward after 2015. Taking stock of 20 years of implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (16891/14);

·EP Resolution of 3 February 2016 on the new Strategy for Women's Rights and Gender Equality in Europe post-2015 (2016/2526(RSP));

·EP Resolution of 12 December 2017 on the EU Citizenship Report 2017: Strengthening Citizens’ Rights in a Union of Democratic Change (2017/2069(INI))

·EP Resolution of 7 February 2018 on protection and non-discrimination with regard to minorities in the EU Member States (2017/2937(RSP)).

·EP Resolution of 25 February 2014 with recommendations to the Commission on combating Violence Against Women (2013/2004(INL));

·EP Resolution of 24 November 2015 on cohesion policy and marginalised communities (2014/2247(INI));

·EP Resolution of 24 November 2016 on the EU accession to the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women (2016/2966(RSP)).

Finally, both the Council and the Parliament have explicitly invited the Commission to further develop and extend the programme in such areas as:

·gender equality, EP Resolution of 14 March 2017 on EU funds for gender equality (2016/2144(INI))

·the fight against the discrimination of Roma, EP Resolution of 25 October 2017 on fundamental rights aspects in Roma integration in the EU: fighting anti-Gypsyism (2017/2038(INI))

·the European Citizens' Initiative EP Resolution of 28 October 2015 on the European Citizens’ Initiative (2014/2257(INI))

·the general promotion of EU citizenship rights. Council Conclusions of 11 May 2017 on the EU Citizenship Report 2017 (9080/17)

·as well as on combating disability-related discrimination :

·COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS European Disability Strategy 2010-2020: A Renewed Commitment to a Barrier-Free Europe {SEC(2010) 1323} {SEC(2010) 1324}

·COUNCIL DECISION of 26 November 2009 concerning the conclusion, by the European Community, of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, (2010/48/EC)

·European Parliament resolution of 7 July 2016 on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, with special regard to the Concluding Observations of the UN CRPD Committee (2015/2258(INI))

·European Parliament resolution of 30 November 2017 on implementation of the European Disability Strategy (2017/2127(INI)

·Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - Concluding observations on the initial report of the European Union - 2 October 2015

Annual EP Resolution on Fundamental Rights and Council conclusions on the application of the Charter in response to Commission Charter report.  Both the EP resolution and Council conclusion highlight pressing fundamental rights issues and avenues for progress.

Non-discrimination , LGBTI and Roma issues are always present in the EP resolutions on Fundamental Rights.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P8-TA-2017-0010+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A8-2017-0294&language=EN

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+MOTION+B8-2015-0326+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN

Council conclusions:

Accelerating the Process of Roma Integration - Council Conclusions (8 December 2016)

http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-15406-2016-INIT/en/pdf

Council recommendation on effective Roma integration measures in the member states

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/lsa/139979.pdf

Every year the Commission issues a Report on the implementation of the EU Roma framework:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/national-roma-integration-strategies-annual-reports_en

The European Pillar of Social Rights:

·COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS Establishing a European Pillar of Social Rights (COM/2017/0250 final)

·COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Report of the public consultation Accompanying the document COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS Establishing a European Pillar of Social Rights (SWD/2017/0206 final)

·COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Accompanying the document COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS Establishing a European Pillar of Social Rights (SWD/2017/0201 final)

·COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Social Scoreboard Accompanying the document COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS Establishing a European Pillar of Social Rights (SWD/2017/0200 final)

· Proposal for a Interinstitutional Proclamation on the European Pillar of Social Rights (COM/2017/0251 final)

MEDIA

The Conclusions of the Council and of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States, meeting within the Council, on media freedom and pluralism in the digital environment (2014/C 32/04) invited the Commission, within its competence to:

·continue to support projects that aim at enhancing the protection of journalists and media practitioners;

·continue to support the independent monitoring tool for assessing risks to media pluralism in the EU (Media Pluralism Monitor), which is implemented by the European University Institute of Florence, and encourage its further use by Member States and all relevant stakeholders;

European Parliament resolution of 21 May 2013 on the EU Charter: standard settings for media freedom across the EU (2011/2246(INI))

The 2015 Latvian Council Conclusions on ‘Creative crossovers to stimulate innovation in society and business' invite the Commission to invest into synergies between technology and the cultural sector, in particular the arts.

See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52015XG0527(03)&qid=1442927546088&from=EN

The upcoming (publication date April 2018) Commission communication on social media (in particular on disinformation) highlights the ever increasing role of social media for our societal debates. This aspect needs to be taken up in a Rights, Equality and Citizenship programme

EUROPE FOR CITIZENS

•    European Parliament's Report of 1 March 2017 on the implementation of Council Regulation (EU) No 390/2014 of 14 April 2014 establishing the Europe for Citizens programme (2015/2329(INI));

See: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P8-TA-2017-0063+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN

In its implementation report, the European Parliament expressed its support of the Europe for Citizens programme and called for an increased budget of 500 million EUR for the next Europe for Citizens programme or its successor improve success rates.

•    European Economic and Social Committee: "Financing of Civil Society Organisations by the EU", own-initiative opinion by Jean Marc Roirant of 19 October 2017, EESC 2017, 01953.

See:https://dm.eesc.europa.eu/EESCDocumentSearch/Pages/opinionsresults.aspx?k=(rapporteur:ROIRANT)(documentlanguage:EN)

The own initiative report of the European Economic and Social committee includes the recommendation to allocate under the next MFF an amount of 500 million EUR to the future Europe for Citizens programme or its successor.

JUSTICE

On the European Judicial Network in civil and commercial matters (EJN Civil), the Council adopted conclusions on the European Judicial Network in civil and commercial matters (15349/16) on 8 and 9 December 2016 and there were also Conclusions of the European Council on 26-27 June 2014 in the area of freedom, security and justice (including on judicial cooperation in civil matters). More recently, the European Parliament issued a Resolution on 16 February 2017 with recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics, asking the Commission to act. The European Council of October 2017 also invited the Commission to come forward with a European approach to artificial intelligence by early 2018. In December 2017 the Joint Declaration of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on the EU's legislative priorities for 2018-19 stressed the need to make progress on the issue of artificial intelligence and robotics.

In its June 2016 Conclusions on improving criminal justice in cyberspace, the Council asked the Commission to explore possible solutions, including legislative options, to improving cross-border access to electronic evidence: Conclusions of the Council of the European Union on improving criminal justice in cyberspace , ST9579/16 .

The European Parliament similarly highlighted the challenges that the currently fragmented legal framework can create and called to put forward a European legal framework including safeguards for the rights and freedoms of all concerned : P8_TA(2017)0366 .

On 20 November 2015, the Council adopted Conclusions on enhancing the criminal justice response to radicalisation leading to terrorism and violent extremism (14419/15). These conclusions urged all relevant stakeholders to implement the appropriate actions at national level, such as the setting up de-radicalisation, disengagement and rehabilitation programmes in and outside prisons, developing risk assessment tools to give suitable criminal justice responses for each radicalised individual and training all professionals involved. The Commission committed, for its part, that the necessary financial resources are made available to support the Member States in the development of those actions.

Both the Council of the EU and the European Parliament have been strong proponents of the work towards the digitalisation of the judiciary, dematerialisation of proceedings, in particular in a cross-border context, and the provision of digital tools towards facilitating citizens' access to justice. e-Justice is one of identified priorities of the Presidency Trio (EE, BG and AT) and will likely remain a priority during the next MFF period :

·Bulgaria’s Justice and Interior Ministers outlined the Presidency priorities before the European Parliament's LIBE Committee, 11/01/2018: https://eu2018bg.bg/en/news/117

·Outcome of the Council meeting 3584th Council meeting, JHA, 7-8 December 2017: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/32163/st15567en17-v3.pdf

·Outcome of the Council meeting 3473rd Council meeting, JHA, 9-10 June 2016: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/22815/st09979en16.pdf

·Conclusions of the Council of the European Union on improving criminal justice in cyberspace, ST 9579/16, 9 June 2016: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/24300/cyberspace-en.pdf

·Multiannual European e-Justice Action Plan 2014-2018: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52014XG0614(01)

·Report on the situation of fundamental rights in the EU in 2016, Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, 13 February 2018: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A8-2018-0025&format=XML&language=EN

·Report with Recommendations with recommendations to the Commission on common minimum standards of civil procedure in the EU, Committee on Legal Affairs, 7 June 2017: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A8-2017-0210&format=XML&language=EN

·Report on the EU eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020 (2016/2273(INI)), 2 May 2017: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A8-2017-0178+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN

·Report with recommendations to the Commission on cross border aspects of adoptions, 6 December 2016: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A8-2016-0370&format=XML&language=EN

·Report on the application of the European Order for Payment Procedure, 18 October 2016: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A8-2016-0299&format=XML&language=EN

Annex 7: Tentative list of indicators proposed for each programme cluster/strand (to further discussed/revised) /TO BE UPDATED

7.1 European Culture, Rights and Values programme

7.2 Justice programme

End notes

(I)

 COM(2018) 98 "A new, modern Multiannual Financial Framework for a European Union that delivers efficiently on its priorities post-2020".

(II)

The 2005 UNESCO Convention promotes artistic freedom as a pillar of the fundamental freedom of expression.

(III)

 http://mastersandservers.org

(IV)

See references to policy documents Annex 6. 

(V)

The European Parliament has made this orientation clear on many occasions notably in its resolution of 7 July 2016 on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, with special regard to the Concluding Observations of the UN CRPD Committee (2015/2258(INI)).

(VI)

For example, for the Cinema Automatic distribution scheme, out of 433 funded companies, it is estimated that 411 would have scaled down or stopped cross-border distribution of European films.

(VII)

The success rate of support schemes declined in 2014-16 compared to 2007-13, reflecting that the schemes are insufficiently funded compared to the potential interest they generate. 16% compared to 26% for the Culture sub-programme and 39% compared to 47% for the MEDIA sub-programme (NB some MEDIA support is "automatic", whereas some support schemes have only 15% success rates). As an average the selected projects had to score 84,5% of the maximum possible evaluation marks. During the same period 712 high quality projects (those which scored between 70% and 84,5% of the maximum possible evaluation marks) could not be funded. The extra cost for funding these 712 high quality projects is estimated to 424 Million Euros.

(VIII)

70% MEDIA and 90% Culture subprogramme stakeholders confirmed current priorities are relevant or extremely relevant.

(IX)

 Creative Europe MEDIA: Implementation, First Experiences, 2016, European Parliament.

(X)

The box office of non-national films remains fixed at approximate average of 10% of the market, showing there is room for improvement in distribution and promotion of EU works.

(XI)

From2014-16 an average €5.6 mio were allocated to 19 VOD companies per year. Revenue growth of the seven supported subscription services was 7%, significantly lower than the sector overall at 113%.

(XII)

  Creative Europe MEDIA: Implementation, First Experiences, 2016, European Parliament.

(XIII)

The EP Report on a coherent EU policy for cultural and creative industries (November 2016) highlighted how in 2014, 1,6% of EU total exports were cultural goods.

(XIV)

European Parliament Report on the implementation of Council Regulation (EU) No 390/2014 of 14 April 2014 establishing the Europe for Citizens programme (2015/2329(INI)).

(XV)

In 2014 the new structure included only two strands accompanied by a horizontal action compared to four action strands in the previous programme 2007-2013.

(XVI)

Currently the MEDIA unit at the EACEA manages 23% of the agency's budget but is responsible for 41% of the total financial transactions.

(XVII)

The external mid-term evaluation recommended to reward beneficiaries which have scaled up their projects.

(XVIII)

This has been signalled in several reports. The mid-term evaluation indicates that existing indicators are regularly monitored but there are some data gaps about performance stemming from indicators not always being sufficiently related to the support of the Programme. The performance audit on the Access to Markets scheme (Moore Stephens, November 2017) underlined the need to define KPIs focusing on performance aspects. The EP report (June 2016, EPRS) found that monitoring was an area for improvement and noted "Considering the specific objectives of the programme (Art. 4), as well as the objectives set for the two programme strands, one consideration is the partial misalignment between the system of result indicators and the programme objectives."

(XIX)

  https://www.tui-stiftung.de/en/media/young-europe-2017-the-youth-study-of-tui-foundation/

(XX)

https://www.tui-stiftung.de/en/media/young-europe-2017-the-youth-study-of-tui-foundation/

(XXI)

2015 EB on electoral rights. & EU Citizenship Report 2017

(XXII)

26% of respondents to the 2015 Euro Barometer on EU citizenship do not feel sufficiently informed about what to do if their rights are not respected.

(XXIII)

According to the 2015 Public consultation on EU citizenship, 21% of respondents said they had experienced difficulties in exercising their electoral rights when living in another EU country.

(XXIV)

  http://ec.europa.eu/justice/discrimination/files/thematic_factsheet_lgbt_en.pdf

(XXV)

http://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2016/eumidis-ii-roma-selected-findings

(XXVI)

 In 2016, a majority of respondents to a public consultation considered that people with disabilities cannot fully participate in society, do not enjoy the same rights as other citizens and face discrimination The results of this public consultation were analysed in the Commission Staff Working Document, "Progress Report on the implementation of the European Disability Strategy (2010 -2020)", SWD(2017) 29 final of 2.02.2017.

(XXVII)

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/fundamental-rights/files/factsheet_eurobarometer_fundamental_rights_2015.pdf

(XXVIII)

One in three women in the EU have experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15,; Fundamental Rights Agency (2014), Violence against women: an EU-wide survey http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra-2014-vaw-survey-main-results-apr14_en.pdf.

(XXIX)

The current context is characterised, for instance, by an unequal participation of women and men in the labour market, an EU average gender pay gap of 16.3%, an unbalanced representation of women and men in decision-making - 2017 report on equality between women and men.

(XXX)

Impact assessment accompanying the communication for a proposal of a directive establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime and for proposal for a regulation on mutual recognition of protection measures in civil matters, SEC(2011) 580 final of 18.5.2011; Impact assessment accompanying the proposal for a directive on the rights of access to a lawyer and of notification of custody to a third person in criminal proceedings, SEC(2011) 686 final of 8.6.2011.

(XXXI)

For the audio-visual sector, several reports underpin the challenges outlined below, namely the Mid-term evaluation on the Creative Europe programme, 2018 and the future of MEDIA after 2020, a contribution to the debate, independent report Rodolphe Buet, 2018.

(XXXII)

What makes these majors so powerful is the fact that they are vertically integrated with activities spanning production and distribution, thus controlling the most important components of the global audio-visual industry’. Ivana Katsarova (2014) European Parliamentary Research Service, ‘Briefing: An Overview of Europe’s Film Industry’, pp. 545,705.

(XXXIII)

The market for SVOD in the EU has been stimulated by the entry of Netflix into national markets since 2012, as well as by both demand and supply-side reaction (EAO (2016) Background on the AF and film sector). In 2015, the EU captured a market share of only around 2 percent of both unique and cumulated titles on TVOD, while the US made up 41 and 59 per cent respectively (EAO (2016) Background on the AF and film sector).

(XXXIV)

Interim Evaluation of the Creative Europe Programme (August 2017, ICF), annex 4 on Level Playing Field.

(XXXV)

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-17-1268_en.htm

(XXXVI)

See details of evaluation in annex 3. 

(XXXVII)

The annual budget for MEDIA amounts to € 105 million as compared to an estimated value of the sector of € 17 billion. •The CCS contribute to 4.4% of the EU GDP (approximately EUR 558 billion) are to 3.8% of the total EU workforce (8,3 million jobs). They are the third largest employer of the EU, after the construction and food and beverage sectors. There were one million market-oriented enterprises in the CCS in 2013. The CCS have shown strong resilience during the economic crisis, with employment continuing to grow at 0.7% annually between 2008-2012. They employ on average more 15-29 olds than any other economic sector and are magnets of talent, with 60% of people with tertiary education compared to only 33% for the total working populatio

(XXXVIII)

 The annual budget of the Creative Europe's Culture sub-progamme amounts to € 65 million while the size of the cultural and creative sectors in Europe represented approximately EUR 560 billion (or 4.5%) of the EU GDP in 2014 and employed 8.5 million workers (3.8% of the total European workforce).

(XXXIX)

Interim Evaluation of the Creative Europe Programme (August 2017, ICF), recommends to develop a more coherent response across the MEDIA Sub-programme to changing technologies and business models in the audiovisual sector.

(XL)

MEDIA subsidies should be reallocated .. to ensure that support pursues structural goals and encourages the emergence of champions. The future of MEDIA after 2020, a contribution to the debate, Rodolphe Buet 2018.

(XLI)

Ex ante impact assessment on the Creative Europe programme. 

(XLII)

Provisional results of the mid-term evaluations of the REC and Justice programmes as well as the results of the mid-term evaluation of Europe for Citizens confirm that visibility and dissemination of the programmes' results need further improvement to ensure sustainability and the long-term exploitation of funded projects.

(XLIII)

in the case of Culture , there is a financing of only around 16% of the proposals same applies for some MEDIA schemes (single development 14% success rate).

(XLIV)

Creative Europe Regulation Art 5.d

(XLV)

Funds should focus on awareness creation with CCS actors and the provision of supporting tools that lower the barriers therefore permitting engagement in cross-sectoral collaborations Mapping the Creative Value chains IDEA, KEA, SMIT 2017.

(XLVI)

For example, experimentations bringing together virtual reality, film, architecture and literature in museums or a slate of films raising awareness on LGBT matters could be supported.

(XLVII)

The "Music moves Europe" initiative has identified the specific needs of the music sector, for which actions are currently being tested in a Preparatory Action.

(XLVIII)

See Communication on "Towards an integrated approach to cultural heritage for Europe" as well as the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage. 

(XLIX)

More details in annex 4.

(L)

This could benefit to projects beyond 20 M € with a strong ambition (e.g. animation) or characterized by both an innovative storytelling and strong commercial potential.

(LI)

While the US and China are most active in VR, there are European studios among the leaders.US investors are already trying to acquire or control these European golden nuggets; The future of MEDIA after 2020, Rodolphe Buet 2018.

(LII)

With an average budget of 35 M € per year MEDIA (selective, automatic and sales agents distribution schemes) has contributed to generate around 68 million cinema admissions each year for European films in other European countries. A significant part of the automatic support was devoted to the acquisition of rights instead of promotional activities. Support to online distribution of films has been supported separately under the scheme promotion of European works online with an average budget of € 3 M.

(LIII)

Presently VOD services with a rich catalogue of European works are supported individually and have declared a total number of 1.689.310 paid for transactions for TVOD and a total number of 275.094 subscribers for SVOD principally on their domestic market.

(LIV)

Where are these film theatres? As is to be expected, in almost all capital and major cities in the continent, but also in 269 towns with fewer than 100,000 residents, including 201 with fewer than 50,000 residents, where European films are regularly shown in local cinemas.

(LV)

For instance by combining movies and gaming.

(LVI)

Build bridges between cinemas and audiences through cinemas and festivals, the future of MEDIA after 2020, Rodolphe buet 2018.

(LVII)

CE funds the activities of selected European Networks and Platforms in the cultural and creative sectors. The Networks support international cooperation, provide specific skills and experience (including adaptation to digital technologies), stimulate the creation of new professional opportunities. The Platforms contribute to foster the mobility and visibility of creators and artists - in particular those lacking international exposure, to facilitate access to non-national European Cultural works via international touring, events, exhibitions and festivals, etc., to support audience development and to provide visibility to Europe's values.

(LVIII)

[i] This performance framework was designed by a "Values" working group which met in February-March 2018, composed of representatives from the following DGs: JUST, HOME, CNECT, EAC, JRC, BUDG.

(LIX)

[ii] Level 1 – Policy Cluster: used for communication on political priorities.

(LX)

[iii] Level 2 – Programme performance indicators: and official performance reporting (AMPR & Programme Statements).

(LXI)

[iv] Level 3 - Programme specific indicators: not included in legal basis but and will be used by DGs for the management of the programme and for the evaluations

(LXII)

See for instance position paper of 28 February 2018 by UN Human Rights Regional Office for Europe .

(LXIII)

Final report: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/events/futureof-gender-equality-2015/files/report_forum_gender_equality_en.pdf

(LXIV)

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/files/opinions_advisory_committee/141201_opinion_ge_eu_en.pdf

(LXV)

https://ec.europa.eu/info/consultations/public-consultation-evaluation-eu-framework-national-roma-integration-strategies-2020_en

(LXVI)

  https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/content/public-consultation-mid-term-evaluation-europe-citizens-programme-2014-2020_en

(LXVII)

See Deloitte and Coffey's mid-term evaluation report of September 2017, p.138, http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/europe-for-citizens-programme/studies/index_en.htm .

(LXVIII)

European Parliament Report on the implementation of Council Regulation (EU) No 390/2014 of 14 April 2014 establishing the Europe for Citizens programme (2015/2329(INI)).

(LXIX)

  https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-europe/creative-europe-2017-consultation_en

(LXX)

The 2018 mid-term evaluation of the REC programme will be published in June 2018.

(LXXI)

See in particular:

Mid-term evaluation of the Europe for Citizens programme 2007-2013, see: http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/pdf/ecorys-_final_report_europe_for_citizens_en.pdf and http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/europe-for-citizens-programme/programme-2007-2013/index_en.htm  

Ex post evaluation of the Europe for Citizens programme 2007-2013, see: http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/pdf/final_efcp_final_report_2015_10_15.pdf and http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/pdf/evaluationreportefc2007-2013_en.pdf

Study on measuring the impact of the Europe for Citizens Programme 2007-2013 (2013).

(LXXII)

See Deloitte and Coffey's mid-term evaluation report of September 2017, p.138, http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/europe-for-citizens-programme/studies/index_en.htm .

(LXXIII)

According to the estimations of direct and indirect participants in the project applications (EACEA monitoring data).

(LXXIV)

See: http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/europe-for-citizens-programme/studies/index_en.htm .

(LXXV)

 new online database which helps to promote the exchange of good practice and synergies between EU funding programmes in the areas of education, culture and citizenship.

(LXXVI)

Regulation N°1381/2013 Coming from the merging of three programmes (Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, Daphné III and the sections "Antidiscrimination and Diversity" and "Gender Equality" of the Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity (PROGRESS).

(LXXVII)

The Daphne programme has been a genuine success since its launch in 1997, both in terms of its popularity with stakeholders (beneficiaries, public and academic authorities, NGOs) and in terms of the effectiveness of the projects funded by the programme - European Parliament resolution of 2 February 2012 on the Daphne programme: achievements and future prospects (2011/2273(INI)).

(LXXVIII)

 In 2017 96% of people consider that domestic violence against women is unacceptable against 84% in 2010 Sources :Eurobarometers.

(LXXIX)

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/document/files/strategic_engagement_en.pdf

(LXXX)

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/eu_funded-projects/transnational-project-summaries/index_en.htm

(LXXXI)

  http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-decision-making/index_en.htm ;http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/economic-independence/economic-growth/index_en.htm

(LXXXII)

2017 citizenship report

(LXXXIII)

 On 6 April 2016, the EU agreed to a major reform of its data protection framework, by adopting the data protection reform package, comprising the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Regulation (EU) 2016/679.

(LXXXIV)

Communication from the Commission, "European Disability Strategy 2010-2020: A Renewed Commitment to a Barrier-Free Europe", COM(2010) 636 of 15.11.2010.

(LXXXV)

In February 2017, the Commission published a Progress Report presenting the achievements, up to 2016, on the implementation of the Strategy and restating its commitment to contribute to the full implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Commission Staff Working Document, "Progress Report on the implementation of the European Disability Strategy (2010 -2020)", SWD(2017) 29 final of 2.02.2017.

(LXXXVI)

Conclusions of the European Film Forum 2015-2016 the need to invest in talent and skills . Training talent and developing skills, the future of MEDIA, contribution to the debate Rodolphe Buet, 2018.

(LXXXVII)

MEDIA co-finances the activity of development before the production of the films with a budget of around 22 M € spread thinly among 200 projects: single development grants for individual video games or films or slate development granted for developing a given selection of films.

(LXXXVIII)

This could benefit to projects beyond 20 M € with a strong ambition (e.g. animation) or characterized by both an innovative storytelling and strong commercial potential.

(LXXXIX)

TV series like: the bridge Babylon Berlin, Versaille) currently supported with grants of 1 M€ per project.

(XC)

TV programming: MEDIA supports currently 55 television productions including series each year with a total budget of 12.5 M€.

(XCI)

While the US and China are most active in VR, there are European studios among the leaders.US investors are already trying to acquire or control these European golden nuggets; The future of MEDIA after 2020, Rodolphe Buet 2018.

(XCII)

With an average budget of 35 M € per year MEDIA (selective, automatic and sales agents distribution schemes) has contributed to generate around 68 million cinema admissions each year for European films in other European countries. A significant part of the automatic support was devoted to the acquisition of rights instead of promotional activities. Support to online distribution of films has been supported separately under the scheme promotion of European works online with an average budget of € 3 M.

(XCIII)

Presently VOD services with a rich catalogue of European works are supported individually and have declared a total number of 1.689.310 paid for transactions for TVOD and a total number of 275.094 subscribers for SVOD principally on their domestic market.

(XCIV)

 The subtitling database is among the measures accompanying the DSM and copyright reform in order to increase efficiency in public funding and use of subtitling and dubbing; Commission Communication of 14/9/2016,C OM/2016/0592 final.

(XCV)

Where are these film theatres? As is to be expected, in almost all capital and major cities in the continent, but also in 269 towns with fewer than 100,000 residents, including 201 with fewer than 50,000 residents, where European films are regularly shown in local cinemas.

(XCVI)

For instance by combining movies and gaming.

(XCVII)

The 70 festivals supported by MEDIA reach a total amount of 4 million people with a budget of 3.5 million.

(XCVIII)

Build bridges between cinemas and audiences through cinemas and festivals, the future of MEDIA after 2020, Rodolphe buet 2018.

(XCIX)

EAO, 18% of all EU films produced between 2011-2015 were exported and the number of growing. Admissions for EU films in non EU markets are on average between 60 and 70 million, which represents 21% of total worldwide admissions.

(C)

The inclusion of the Multimedia Actions line, which funds 'general information' on EU affairs in the proposed programme remains an open question.

(CI)

Coming from the merging of three programmes (Civil justice, Criminal Justice and Drug Prevention and information programme).