European Union culture policies aim to address and promote the cultural dimension of European integration through relevant legislation and government funding. These policies support the development of cultural activity, education or research conducted by private companies, NGO's and individual initiatives based in the EU working in the fields of cinema and audiovisual, publishing, music and crafts. The European Commission runs Culture Programme , and the EU funds other cultural bodies such as the European Cultural Month, the Media Programme, the European Union Youth Orchestra and the European Capital of Culture programme. The EU awards grants to cultural projects and has launched a web portal dedicated to Europe and Culture, responding to the European Council's expressed desire to see the Commission and the member states "promote the networking of cultural information to enable all citizens to access European cultural content by advanced technological means."
History and development
The European Council, which is distinct from the European Union, first formalised cultural cooperation policy in Europe with its European Cultural Convention. However, European Union-affiliated cultural policy, promoting unified cooperation between member states was first initiated with the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. Currently, a is established in each EU member state, responsible for facilitating communication between the European Commission's Cultural Programme and each member state.
Institutions and bodies
The most important EU institutions through which decisions are made regarding cultural policies are:
The European Commission runs the EU's Culture Programme, which typically runs in 7 year intervals. The last Culture Programme was called Culture 2000. For the next Culture Programme was spent €400 million. Current program is called "Creative Europe".
Sports
Sport is largely the domain of the member states, with the EU mostly playing an indirect role. Recently the EU launched an anti-doping convention. The role of the EU might increase in the future, if the Treaty of Lisbon were to be ratified by all member states. Other policies of the EU have affected sports, such as the freedom of employment which was at the core of the Bosman ruling, which prohibited national football leagues from imposing quotas on foreign players with EU nationality.
Languages
The languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. They include the 23 official languages of the European Union plus many others. EU policy is to encourage all its citizens to be multilingual; specifically, it encourages them to be able to speak two languages in addition to their mother tongue. The reason for this is not only to promote easier communication between Europeans, but also to encourage greater tolerance and respect for diversity. A number of EU funding programmes actively promote language learning and linguistic diversity. The content of educational systems remains the responsibility of individual Member States. Further information can be found at language policy.
