Macedonia officially joins EU's "Creative Europe" program

Macedonia has officially become a full-fledged participant in the European Union 'Creative Europe' programme. Andrej Lepavcov, Head of Macedonia's Mission to the European Union in Brussels, and Jan Truszczynski, Director General of the European Commission DG for Education and Culture, signed Tuesday an agreement on the country's accession to the programme.

Creative Europe is the EC's new 2014 - 2020 framework programme for support to the culture and media sectors.

Following on from the previous Culture Programme and MEDIA programs, Creative Europe, with a budget of €1.46 billion (9% higher than its predecessors), will support culture sector initiatives, such as those promoting cross-border cooperation, platforms, networking, and literary translation; audiovisual sector initiatives, such as those promoting the development, distribution, or access to audiovisual works; and  a cross-sectoral strand, including a Guarantee Facility and transnational policy cooperation.

The program consists of two sub-programs; the Culture sub-program to promote the culture sector, and the MEDIA sub-program to support the audiovisual sector.