Avignon: The AgoraEU programme, Brussels’ plan to fund culture, media and civic values from 2028 to 2034, has become a test of how much Europe will spend on its own creative sector. Cultural networks stepped up pressure on 9 November 2026 with a joint statement urging member states to reject what they describe as a 30 percent cut.
The Commission proposed the AgoraEU programme in July 2025 with about €8.6 billion in current prices, roughly 0.43 percent of the next long-term budget. The new instrument merges Creative Europe with the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme into three strands, namely Creative Europe Culture, MEDIA+ and CERV+.
The European Parliament wants more. In its position on the 2028-2034 budget, adopted on 28 April 2026, it backed €10.72 billion, about 25 percent above the Commission figure. Rapporteurs Emma Rafowicz, a French Socialist, and Alice Kuhnke, a Swedish Green, lead the file for Parliament, which wants stable funding for culture, independent media and civic groups.
Member states see it differently. The Council agreed a partial general approach on the programme’s content on 12 May 2026 but left the money in brackets. The Cypriot Presidency’s negotiating box of 16 June then pencilled in €7.295 billion in constant prices, a figure that, according to calculations reported by EU Insider, sits about a third below Parliament’s position.
The gap matters most for the Culture strand. The Commission proposed about €1.8 billion for it, which EU Insider describes as roughly nine cents per €100 of the long-term budget. Arts organisations from festival towns such as Avignon to small publishers in central Europe rely on these grants for cross-border tours, translations and co-productions.
The fight over the AgoraEU programme follows years of annual squeezes. Europa Nostra, the heritage federation, joined more than 200 organisations in October to oppose a Council plan to cut €31.6 million from Creative Europe commitments in the 2027 annual budget, against a Commission draft of €417.35 million. The federation noted that this marked the fourth year in the current cycle with proposed Council cuts.
Supporters also point to political commitments. In June 2026 the presidents of the Council, Parliament and Commission signed a joint declaration titled Europe for Culture, Culture for Europe, which campaigners now cite as a promise that the budget should honour.
Trilogue negotiations on the programme can only conclude once leaders settle the overall size of the 2028-2034 budget. The Council has signalled that it wants budget questions resolved by the end of 2026, a timetable many observers consider optimistic given divisions over defence, agriculture and cohesion.
Until then, the AgoraEU programme stays hostage to the wider budget battle. Cultural organisations will keep lobbying national culture ministries, arguing that a modest increase would protect jobs and media pluralism, while finance ministries treat every euro for the AgoraEU programme as a trade-off against other priorities.
