United Kingdom to join the Creative Europe programme from 2027

Dear supporters,

Our petition calling on the UK government to join Creative Europe is approaching the finish line – 11 days remain until it’s closed on 31 May.

Currently, we have reached only 1,700 signatures – which unfortunately is much lower than what we had expected. We hope (and are quite certain) this number doesn’t reflect the actual views and needs of the Cultural and Creative Sectors in the United Kingdom and in the European Union.

The higher the number of signatures, the more convincing our demand is. Therefore, let’s use the remaining 11 days to get more signatures. If numbers begin to increase significantly, we can extend the deadline for another week or so – but that’s it. Then, we will have to deliver the petition to the British government.

You can help by reminding your friends and colleagues of the petition once more. Just share this link with them: http://openpetition.org/!ukjoince.

Furthermore, we would also like to remind you of our social media campaign with the European Movement UK. Please send us…

• a photo (vertical) and quote of max. 15 words,
• a short video (vertical) of around 30 seconds,

…explaining why the Creative Europe programme matters to you, ideally with reference to previous successful Creative Europe projects.

It is up to the Cultural and Creative Sectors to raise their voices and make this petition a success. We can only facilitate it.

Best wishes,
Mafalda and Benjamin

Dear supporters,

Our petition will now be complemented by a broader campaign that our Forum is organising together with the European Movement UK - which was instrumental in the successful campaign that got the UK back into Erasmus+.

Many of you have already left comments to our petition - more than 600 in total - explaining why you believe this cause matters to you. And this is what we want to build upon. Support our social media campaign!

To be convincing with our demand, we must give specific examples of previous Creative Europe programmes that demonstrate in practical ways why rejoining it matters and how UK communities would gain from this decision.

This is where we need your help. To have a strong campaign that represents the sector, we need the following:

• Photos of programmes that benefitted from Creative Europe support accompanied by a short statement (fewer than 15 words) for use on static graphics/quote graphics. Important: the following topics are particularly likely to help us convince the government: community, placemaking, young people, wellbeing, inclusion, social cohesion, growth, innovation. If you have any examples of CE projects that touched on these issues, that would be excellent. However, any statements are helpful – also if focused on international collaboration, knowledge exchange, creative experimentation, etc!
• One sentence of support (fewer than 15 words) by recognisable artists/musicians/curators/film directors/writers/etc explaining why the UK joining Creative Europe is important to their practice and to the sector. Ideally this will be accompanied by a photo that we can use online.
• The best type of content: short videos of support by recognisable artists/musicians/curators/film directors/writers/directors of museums, etc (important: vertical, short, around 30 seconds in length, slightly shorter or longer being fine – but no longer than 60 seconds) 

If you and/or your organisation benefitted from Creative Europe, it would be extremely helpful if you could send us – ideally by Monday the 11th of May – one sentence (fewer than 15 words) and an image (or several) to support the campaign, and to send us short videos by the 18th.

Please send your email to our address organisers@forum-uk.eu with the subject „Creative Europe campaign“.

When you email us, please also indicate the name of the Creative Europe projects that were supported and your organisation’s social media channels.

We will organise and share the content received from you with the European Movement, whose social media team will create the social media posts and disseminate them. As you may know, their social media channels have a significant following, including in Westminster.

By emailing us, you agree that we can use your content for our campaign and share it publicly.

The window for the UK to join Creative Europe from 2027 will close at the end of June. From the EU’s side, the technical and political conditions are ideal – all is missing is for the UK government to call on the EU to begin conversations.

We appreciate your support in showing the UK government and Westminster that this matters!

Best wishes,
Mafalda and Benjamin