That the creative industries are high on the EU's cultural political agenda has been evident in recent EU presidencies – UK, Austria and now also Finland have given it a prominent place in their work programmes. They organised a series of conferences starting with "The Creative Economy Conference"[1] in the UK, followed by "Content for Competitiveness – Strengthening the European Creative Industries in the Light of the i2010-Strategy"[2] in Austria, and "creativity.online.fi – European Content and Copyright Policy"[3] in Finland. The series will be continued in the course of the German presidency[4]. Central issues in the conferences were intellectual property rights and copyright policies, with a special focus on online communication/distribution.

And creative industries has a prominent place not only in the context of these presidencies: The European Council's workplan for culture 2005/2006 lists this topic in first position[5], with plans including a study to be organised by the European Commission "on ways in which creativity, creative industries, and public-private partnerships in the cultural sector already contribute to European economic, social and cultural potential and thereby to the achievement of Lisbon targets"[6]. An invitation to participate in an online consultation organised by the Directorate General Education and Culture (DG EAC) in autumn 2006 explicitly mentions the cultural industries when defining the stakeholders as "in particular, organisations and individuals active in the cultural sector, including cultural industries"[7].

The following article analyses an economistic approach that has become increasingly predominant, is in danger of becoming a paradigm of cultural policies as a whole, and is additionally part of how the paradigm of creativity has become predominant in post-fordist production contexts in general.

I will start with an introduction to the structural setting, in which creative industries policies in the EU context are situated, and then analyse current developments elaborating on three topics: the Lisbon strategy as a root; the change from a policy which is mainly oriented to support for creative production, e. g. regional policy, to a policy which mainly works with "hard law" regulations as copyright policy. The final section will analyse the interconnection between two contradictory relations: economic and cultural aspects on the one hand, and political competences on European and national levels on the other.

 
Policy Network

The aforementioned conferences are interventions in a very heterogeneous policy field. EU policies have a relatively long history in specific sectors; for example the EU's flagship policy field within cultural industries – audiovisual policy[8] – started in the early 1980s[9]. Policy strategies explicitly relating to "creative industries" or "cultural industries" as a global concept, however, have been developed only since the second half of the 1990s. Yet this did not lead to a common definition and consistent common policy, but took the form of a highly heterogeneous kind of policy network.

A working paper by Ellen Huijgh and Katie Segers, which was published this year, gives an overview of the developments in European and international policies in that field. The authors describe EU policies on cultural industries as something that was introduced relatively late, as mainly being pragmatic, and – due to the lack of a common definition[10] – as an "amalgam of policies"[11].

"The documents of the European Parliament, European Commission and European Council do not leave any doubt about the fact that cultural industries contribute to the global economic and cultural interests [...]. Besides this, one never mentions explicitly whether the cultural industries are considered as an economic service or a service of global cultural interest. [...] Due to the lack of consensus on the concept cultural industries the EU institutions seem not to be able to adjust their policies to apply the existing laws to the cultural industries."[12]

What Huijgh/Segers seem to have in mind is a traditional policy setting, which departs from a discussion about the economic and cultural aspects, leading to clear definitions, on the basis of which a consistent policy can be developed. Also several EU documents refer to such a policy setting, asking for a clear definition of cultural industries and/or a coherent policy. However, they do not come up with definitions themselves and sometimes tend to "put the responsibility on the others"[13].

I think that this is not just an insufficiency. Culture in EU policy is a cross-sectional matter[14]. To a much greater extent than in traditional cultural policy – regarding contemporary arts and cultural heritage – in the broader field of creative industries this seems to be an everyday reality. Audiovisual and media policy, regional policy, art policy, competition policy, internal market policy, including policies on intellectual property rights etc., all intervene in this field[15]. The different Directorate Generals and other political actors analyse the sector from their own perspective and intervene in that field according to their own logic. A network-like structuring of policy fields can have various consequences. In the present case it appears to be very important to the proponents of economicisation that the possibilities for action are not constrained by binding definitions and valuations, but to leave these interventions to a free play of forces.

Let us look, for example, at the conclusions drawn from their conference by the Austrian presidency:

"Creativity is an important source for competitiveness in a knowledge-based society, and the application of ICT for content production and dissemination is a key factor for the promotion of growth and employment. It is important, however, not to see culture and the market, creativity and competition as contradictory. On the contrary, creativity and innovation need to be present in all policy areas."[16] There is obviously no interest in differentiating between economic and cultural aspects. The striking point about this quote is, in my view, not only that the existence of a contradiction between economic and cultural aspects is denied, but that this denial is combined with a reference to the cross-sectional policy approach and implicitly to the heterogeneity of the policy field. The free play of forces integrates the sector into the general trend in EU-policy to an ever increasing market liberalisation.

 
The Lisbon Strategy as a Root

Reading the current EU-documents which deal with creative industries or aspects of the sector and looking at which other policy objectives they refer to, one always ends up with the Lisbon strategy – either directly, or indirectly through other EU documents.

The Lisbon strategy, as is well known, was formulated in the year 2000 with the aim of making the European Union “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world”[17] by 2010. Due to the fact that the economic perspectives at the end of the 1990s were quite positive and most of the EU member states had social democratic governments at that time, the first formulation of the Lisbon strategy not only focused on competitiveness in the world markets, but also made reference to higher job quality, social cohesion, and sustainable development.

Some years later it became clear that the EU was behind schedule, and it became obvious that it would not be possible to reach the aspired aims by 2010. An interim report criticised mainly the inconsistent implementation of the strategy (namely on the part of the member states), and that the aims were too complex to be reached[18]. There was no critical appraisal of the underlying neoliberal principles, "instead, the European Commission and the Council adhered to the basic neoliberal conception and tried to implement it in its pure form – liberated from all ecological and social aspirations"[19]. In 2005 a new start of the Lisbon process was proclaimed, with growth and jobs as the two main targets and with a tendency to eclipse all other aims, while reaffirming at the same time that social cohesion and ecological sustainability must not be attenuated.[20]

There is some insistence behind this new start. This is evident for example in the strategic guidelines on cohesion, which state e.g. that the policy mix in a regional strategy may vary according to the context, but the Commission's governing principle when negotiating the different regional and national programmes will be their contribution to the "Growth and Jobs Strategy"[21], or even virtually in a tone of exhortation: "In this context, it is important for the key stakeholders at national, regional and local level to rally behind the reform agenda so that resources are genuinely concentrated on promoting growth and jobs and put in place the necessary partnership networks to that effect."[22]

There are several links between the Lisbon Strategy and cultural/creative industries. One link is the jobs in this sector. Interestingly, DG Employment seems to have been the first EU institution that became interested in "cultural industries" as a global concept[23]. A broader debate was started with a study which was published in 1998[24]. This paper stresses the high job potential of the sector, and it at least also mentions the high degree of precariousness and uncertainty of many jobs in this sector.

In later studies and documents both aspects are repeatedly mentioned, with an increase in the sheer number of jobs as the main aspect for policy intervention (even though this aspect often seems to be more evoked in a way that is hardly scientifically coherent, than actually based on facts). The aspect of uncertainty and precariousness is either simply taken for granted, or possible solutions are sought in current neoliberal so-called empowering strategies – education, training, including workshops on how to become self-employed etc.

The contradiction between high job potential and the lack of social security has at least led to some demands in studies – that statistics should not just count the sheer number of jobs, but also collect data about income, whether people can live from their jobs etc., and also calls for an employment strategy for the cultural sector.

But these are only very small steps. It may be expected that the topic of employment in the creative industries will be even more strongly emphasised against the backdrop of the renewed Lisbon Strategy. However, taking into account the general tendency of this renewal – the attenuation of aspects which go beyond improvement of growth and jobs in sheer numbers – , the policy approach is not likely to change substantially.

The second link, which is stressed frequently, is the role of creativity in the knowledge and information economy. A few years ago, this was not a main topic in EU cultural policy. In the Commission's proposal for the "Culture 2007" programme[25], for example, which was published in July 2004, the terms "Lisbon", "information society" or "knowledge economy" do not appear at all. This might be due to two reasons: on the one hand the timing – the proposal was finalised some time before the new start of the Lisbon Strategy was officially launched, and on the other hand the issue of content: the programme's main aim has been to support non-profit arts and cultural heritage projects. Various attempts on the part of special interest groups to enforce the implementation of an additional (beyond audiovisual policy) support programme for the cultural industries (or a budget line within "Culture 2007") were either forestalled or did not materialise.[26]

In contrast to this, the Lisbon Strategy has an important place in the mentioned invitation of autumn 2006 to participate in the DG EAC consultation[27]. This is also apparent in the questionnaire: "Do you see a role for culture as a stimulus for creativity in Europe and as a catalyst for innovation and knowledge? If so, please indicate how this role should be supported at European level?"[28] Another current document, the Commission's proposal to make 2008 the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, gives one possible answer to this question. It states that intercultural dialogue contributes toward achieving a number of the Union’s strategic priorities, among others: "by including the renewed Lisbon strategy, for which the knowledge-based economy requires people capable of adapting to changes and benefiting from all possible sources of innovation in order to increase prosperity"[29].

What appears to be manifested/reinforced here in conjunction with the Lisbon strategy is a process that is also generally described in relation to cultural policy developments as a transition from policy concepts relating to "cultural industries" to policy concepts relating to "creative industries": "Further developments towards a wider context of application led to a shift from the concept of cultural industries to the notion of creative industries, the understanding of the creativity concept itself moving from the activities having a strong artistic component to 'any activity producing symbolic products with a heavy reliance on intellectual property and for as wide a market as possible'."[30] In recent developments on the EU level, there seem to be two more aspects in addition to this general description: the threat that this development will not be restricted to creative industries but shape cultural policies as a whole[31]; and the tendency to go beyond the realm of symbolic products to become the predominant paradigm in post-fordist production contexts in general.

 
From "Soft Law" to "Hard Law"

It seems that in the current discussion on creative/cultural industries, references to regional policy are quite rare. For example in the programmes and materials of the three conferences I mentioned at the beginning, there are a few minor references to the "regional", but nothing substantial. In the "i2010" strategy paper, regional policy is referred to, but only in a passage about technical infrastructure and Internet broadband access, with the task of ensuring equal technical standards in all regions[32].

This is a bit surprising – not just in terms of the general fact that the major portion of creativity discussions, which are inspired by authors like Richard Florida, and the cluster theories mainly refer to location, but also in terms of the historical function of regional policies in EU politics with an impact on the cultural sector.

As early as the late 1980s the EU already abandoned the concept of regional policies that understands solidarity among regions in the sense of a direct compensation/balancing between richer and poorer regions. Unlike Thatcher's regional policy in the UK, for example, the EU basically maintained the aspect of solidarity, but it has been a model of solidarity based on the concept of competitiveness: a poor region gets support with the aim of making it competitive, so that it can participate in the overall competition between regions. EU cultural policy and cultural support on regional levels have been part of this, and I think that in the context of EU policies this was a primary instrument for turning economic aspects into an influential point of view in cultural policies.[33]

Seen against this background, it is remarkable that the connection between the current discussion and regional policies seems quite weak. My interpretation so far is that regional policy has contributed to making creative industries approaches an acknowledged part of cultural policy at the regional level and is now an everyday reality. At the same time, leading EU policies have moved to different levels: from being space oriented to the Internet, from regional to pan-European, to some extent from content to infrastructure and hardware[34], and seemingly also from so-called "soft-law" (enabling through support-programmes) to "hard-law" regulations, for example about intellectual property rights.

Proposed restrictions in the field of intellectual property rights imply a certain tendency to criminalise media users and especially people who actively promote the free flow of information. The question arises as to whether such a development as has been briefly sketched here may signal an indication of a transition in neoliberalism from a mainly liberal to a more repressive stage.[35]

These kinds of displacements/recompositions of policy fields also imply the threat that certain policy styles and basic attitudes could be transferred into other sectors. This might be similar to developments in the mid-1990s, which Christina Holtz-Bacha has described: the increasing convergence of audiovisual media policy and policy in the field of digital communication infrastructure led to an import of the "spirit of deregulation and liberalisation"[36], which had been omnipresent in EU action in the telecommunications sector.

 
Identity/Economy

The aforementioned invitation to the cultural sector to participate in the online consultation in preparation of the 2007 Communication on Culture of the European Commission mentions two "main sets of objectives":

"- developing active European citizenship, respecting cultural diversity, promoting intercultural dialogue, while fostering a sense of "European identity" complementary to other identities;

- the economic and social objectives of the Lisbon agenda, and the role of creativity in enhancing the competitive edge of Europe."[37]

Condensed into core aims, this means: identity politics and the economic aspects of the cultural sector. Both have been among the main objectives in EU cultural policy since the early 1980s[38] at the latest. In a cultural policy, which has become more and more pragmatic[39], these core aims – including the economic aims – are increasingly becoming overwhelming today.

 
Identity

At the centre of EU cultural policies are still the national cultural identities and at the same time the aim of propounding a European cultural identity on the basis of a diversity of these national cultural identities[40]. This forms the foundation for cultural action at the EU level in two respects: in the allocation of competences within the multilevel political system, and as an ideological grounding.

In the EC treaties cultural competences have not been mentioned at all for a long time. At that stage, legal and political competences for culture (at all levels, including the international) automatically belonged to the member states, apart from a few first initiatives such as the European Cultural City. In the Treaty of Maastricht (1992) an article on culture was included. The main competence, however, stayed with the member states, whereas only a supplementary competence is granted at the European level – in a complementary manner and only in connection with a European added value.

Gudrun Quenzel analysed the ideological grounding – the constructions of Europe – as laid down in the legal documents of the EC. She states that "the conception of a shared European culture and different national cultures are not found in explicit contradiction to one another anywhere within the legal documents."[41] She thus concludes:

"In summary, it is initially evident that the Council presumes homogeneous cultures and attributes a territorial foundation to them. In the legal documents cultures correspond to peoples and/or nations, or they coincide with the borders of these: either nations are the same as cultures, or they have a culture. In addition, the field of cultural and artistic production is regarded as a representation of nations and/or cultures. [...] In terms of the integration of national identity into a shared European identity, the Council thus pursues the strategy returning cultural diversity to a diversity of antecedent European culture. The subjects are appealed to as members of their nation, and at the same time the nation is defined as an equal part of Europe. Through this process, in the appellation as national citizens there is simultaneously the echo of an appellation as Europeans, and national identity becomes part of a European identity."[42]

In this context, Quenzel points out the practical problems that in this approach the phenomenon of migration is totally neglected and that the EU can comprehend states such as Russia or Turkey only as national/cultural entities, which are as a whole either European or not.

In general, the concept of national/European identities is completely inadequate in terms of serving as a basis for the development of political concepts able to deal with the processes of social recomposition that are currently taking place[43]. And although it is evident that the European identity that the European Union aims at, is not of a comparably totalitarian nature as the classical political identity that the European nation-states developed, the model still is one of a territorially defined cultural identity, which conforms quite well to the political reality of a "fortress Europe", which increasingly closes its borders and tightens laws.

It is not possible to develop a really transnational cultural policy on the basis of this ideological foundation, thus the attempts to this until now have been quite weak and undetermined.

 
Economy

In this policy setting, the convergence between economic and cultural aspects is a clear objective. Reaching these kinds of convergences, or at least making them plausible, seems to be especially easy once the "cultural aspects" have been simplified to essentialist cultural identities. Examples for these kinds of convergences are the European cities of culture, which are supposed to contribute to building a European cultural identity and at the same time have considerable economic impact[44]; or the minimum quotas for European productions in the television directives, in which the arguments concerning a European identity converge with the arguments about raising market shares against the superiority of American movies[45].

Yet on the other hand, these convergences are also not always so easy to achieve, so tensions between economic and cultural aspects remain present as a topic[46] – either in the form of a critique of economistic cultural policies, or in the neoliberal denial of the contradictory nature of this relation.

Partly due to the allocation of competences (culture as a competence of the member states vs. for example internal market as a competence of the Union), contradictions between economic and cultural aspects[47] often take the form of conflicts between member states and the Union, especially the European Commission. An example are the audiovisual and media policies of the EU, as analysed by Christina Holtz-Bacha[48]: In the early 1980s there were attempts to set up a European TV-channel – arising mainly in association with the European Parliament. After these experiments failed, primarily because there were no proper solutions developed to deal with multilinguality, the EU completely changed its policy, mostly due to urging from the European Commission: TV broadcasting was defined as a service, and largely negative integration followed from deregulation. Holtz-Bacha's account of the following developments is the history of a contradiction between the member states and their public broadcasting organizations bringing up cultural arguments, programme quality etc. on the one hand, and the European Commission on the other hand, which argues economically in the sense of a free market policy in general, and also takes in the arguments of the private broadcasters etc.

Cases like this seem to confirm the allocation of competences and the cultural competence of the member states (which might be true for certain aspects of TV policy), but should not be generalised to a setting: nation states defending culture vs. the neoliberal Commission (cf. the aforementioned conferences and the dedication of the three member states to promote the economisation of the cultural sector). But what we can see at the same time is that the practical realisation of the member state's cultural competences – in the sense of actually enforcing decisions/rules – is much more challenged in this contradiction between economic/cultural aspects than it is in the relation national/European identities. And this challenge is all the more obvious if we take into consideration what was said earlier about the policy network.

In the conclusion of a study, which was commissioned by the Austrian Presidency as preparation for their 2006 conference, the authors argue that ascribing cultural competency to the member states in the European Treaty on a practical policy level does "not say much, since [...] content is a cross-sectional matter, which in many ways and respects falls within the competence of the community legislators".[49] They see the new television directive and the developments in the field of intellectual property rights as steps in the right direction and conclude: "A European content policy that is more than the sum total of the individual member states' policies must be clearly identifiable as such. European primary law would be the right place for embodying democratic and cultural policy guideline principles for a special European market model covering important parts of the content sector. The 'cultural article' in its present form [...] does not appear to live up to this challenge. [...] If, in an open and proactive approach a culture-oriented European content policy is sought that preserves and promotes the global competitiveness of Europe's content industry, the community must be equipped with the necessary regulatory competences in the field of cultural policy."[50]

In the neoliberal discourse which accompanies these developments, there is also a tendency to incorporate arguments that were considered part of the "cultural aspects" in functions which are ascribed to the market or economic policies. Thus, it is no longer a 'logic of the market' versus 'broad access to culture', but instead: 'the market provides broad access to cultural goods'. Equally, there is no longer a juxtaposition of the 'logic of competitiveness' versus 'cultural diversity', but instead: 'competition policy basically supports cultural diversity, because it aims to prevent the emergence of monopolies'. [51]

As it has not been possible – nor even really attempted – to go beyond the concept of national cultural identities and develop a genuinely transnational cultural policy, there is a certain likelihood that in the near future the only path in this direction will follow the concepts of creative industries. But then it will not be realised as a cultural policy oriented to content/structure, but as a cultural policy that is to be shifted to form part of a free market policy.

 
Conclusion

The economisation of the cultural sector, basically a long-term trend in EU policies, has been clearly intensified in recent years. One of the driving forces of the actual developments is the Lisbon Strategy with its "jobs and growth strategy" and concepts of information/knowledge economy. In terms of practical policy, three fields can be identified in which the EU is especially active: audiovisual, digital communication, and copyright policies.

"Cultural industries" or "creative industries" as a global concept have also been part of the discussion at the EU level. While there have been rapid developments in certain sectors, the impact of the global concept was rather limited – at least until recently. In the last two years, however, the terms "creativity" and "creative industries"/"creative economy" seem to be proliferating in EU cultural policy. At the moment, it seems to be a set of terms that has no clear outline, but exists mainly to link the fields mentioned here, in which concrete policy is developed on the one hand, and the global concept of the Lisbon Strategy / knowledge economy on the other. And this corresponds with the general process of the increasing economisation of the cultural sector.

Accordingly, I don't think it would be useful to put the term "creative industries" at the centre of the development of counter strategies against the increasing economisation in EU cultural policy, but to see this term just as one element among others. Counter strategies can mainly relate to concrete developments in certain sectors – for example, copyright policy has already led to broader resistance, and the tensions between economic and cultural aspects, which are not so easily resolved, open up possibilities for intervention. As far as the terms "creative industries" / "creative economy" are concerned, it will be important in the near future to observe whether and how the proliferation continues and which performative effects deriving from this become apparent at the EU level, and to react to these developments.

I would like to thank Therese Kaufmann for discussions about this text.

 
This text is the result of a research cooperation by FRAME and eipcp.