Polish creators and Polish institutions are present in all cultural activities of the European Union. The dynamics of their participation in the programmes is clearly increasing, stable, though not besides high. The ability to manage global cultural projects is present considered to be 1 of the highest competences of the management staff, a akin smooth movement in the global environment and networking activities.
Since the beginning of accession changes, Polish culture has been active in obtaining European resources, as well as in the processes of networking and creating global partnerships, as well as in uncovering its fresh European role. The creators and the people of culture “took” the aesthetic trends of the West in order to be able to position their post-communist intellectual format to a different reality of creative industries and paradigm of the economics of the culture of the late 20th century. It was a leap into deep water, but besides a breakthrough in civilization. 1 can hazard saying that the cultural and creative sectors showed reflexes and flexibility in resonating with all that has become available to us after dismantling the barrier at Oder in 2004.
People of culture learned modern methods of management and leadership, both in local and national institutions and nonprofit organizations. Not all of them were able to participate in EU measures at erstwhile due to the request for a advanced own contribution, yet funds were already raised from the first EU pilot and assistance programmes available to EU associated countries in the 1990s. As part of the programme for the protection of architectural heritage, the European Commission awarded as many as 10 grants from 1992 to 1995, including for the Royal Castle in Warsaw and the Malbork Castle, as well as for the Church of Peace in Javor or the Mausoleum of Silesian Piasts in Wrocław. In 1999, as part of the Rafael programme, EU support was obtained by Franciscans in the Pacławska Kalwaria and Carmelici Bosi in Przemyśl – in both cases it was allocated to the preservation of wooden Baroque art. The Navis II programme was attended by the Central Maritime Museum (today the National Maritime Museum). As part of programmes supporting artistic and literary works and disseminating various forms of cultural life, Poland received backing in 23 cases between 1993 and 1998, including the Kaleidoscope programme, the Teatral Festival “Kontakt’93”, the global conference “Art in Central Europe” at the global Cultural Centre in Krakow, the Wroclaw Vratislavia Cantans and Trennale Rysunkowe and the 2nd Shakespeare Festival and Shakespeare Week – both in Gdańsk. A full of 199 Polish cultural operators have already participated in the first EU Framework Programme “Culture 2000” (2000-2007) and Kraków was 1 of the first centres of our region in 2000 to celebrate the title of European City of Culture [1]. The audiovisual sector besides gained momentum through the Media and Media Plus programmes (2001-2005), which financed the promotion and distribution of European works on the continent, and supported networking and professionalisation of the audiovisual industry. It is worth noting that we are talking about the pre-accession period, that is, 1 in which application forms were made up in a abroad language, state aid in accessing European funds was in the first phase, and global cooperation was carried out in full only by rich national institutions and prestigious festivals. In reaching for EU funds large cities (especially Warsaw and Kraków) and rich facilities were built. The geographical trend has remained until today, i.e. the EU programmes are inactive attended by leading urban centres, while a large number of NGOs have surely joined the competitions.
After the accession, the Culture 2007–13 framework programme offered the European cultural sector EUR 400 million, which, of course, was not an excessive sum on the EU scale but at least doubled compared to Culture 2000. The European institutions were increasingly eager to submit to the Commission's competitions, whether for short- and long-term projects, for literary translations, festivals or awards. At that time, the average amount of the grant was between EUR 2 000 and EUR half a million per year. In these years 203 cultural projects were carried out for a full of 66 million EUR (283 million PLN), which placed us in the eighth position as the Leader of the task after Italy, France, Germany, large Britain, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands, and before Austria, Czech Republic and Romania. In the next Creative Europe programme (2014-2020) The European Commission has brought together the cultural and creative sectors, with a higher amount of EUR 1 billion in full spending. However, it should be noted that the cultural sub-programme accounted for 31% of the full budget, which amounted to EUR 453 million (a small bit higher than the erstwhile programme). The sub-programme dedicated to the audiovisual sector covered 56% of the budget with an amount of EUR 819 million and the cross-sectoral area (13%) covered EUR 190 million.
In summing up today's Creative Europe (2014-2020), 41 countries participated. The Commission granted a full of 13 000 grants for 647 projects co-financed by 3760 organisations. The program financed the improvement and distribution of 500 films and feature series, supported 1144 cinemas and 211 video game projects. The grants translated 3,500 books and provided 4362 loans to tiny and medium-sized enterprises. The average grant of Creative Europe in Poland for a smaller task amounted to EUR 200 000 (75 projects), while on a large scale – over EUR 1 million (43 projects). Most cultural operators applied for grants for small-scale projects. The number of projects for translation was 16, networking – 4, immigrant integration projects – 2. All activities of Polish cultural operators in Creative Europe, including the European Year of Cultural Heritage (2018), received a grant from the European Commission for a full of EUR 73 million, or around PLN 313 million. Together in the Culture 2007–13 programmes and Creative Europe programmes, the cultural and creative sectors in Poland received EU backing of PLN 597 million between 2007 and 2020.
The programme “Creative Europe” (2014-2020) was attended by 140 Polish cultural institutions and non-governmental organisations and publishing houses, most of which came from Warsaw (60), Krakow (20), then Gdańsk (16), Wrocław (15), Poznań (10), Łódź (10), Lublin (5), after respective institutions from Katowice, Goleniów, Ełku and Piaseczna, and after 1 from Gdynia, Szczecin, Cieszyn, Bytomy, Wojnowic, Stalowa Wola, Orońska, Maszew, Lęborka, Bielska-Biała, Słupska and Kołobrzeg. On a European scale, as task Leaders, Poland is ranked thirteenth after Western European countries specified as Italy, France, Spain and Germany. As far as backing of smaller-scale projects is concerned, Poland is on the ninth place after the large countries of Western Europe, but besides behind Slovenia and Croatia. As far as larger-scale projects are concerned, we are at the fifteenth place, besides after Western countries and Slovenia. In our competition for literary translations, we placed on the ninth place, after Serbia, Bulgaria and North Macedonia.
The activities of cultural institutions and organisations in the cross-sectoral area should be added to these calculations. Polish culture has 4 European literary awards for the past fewer years: Jack Dukaj's fresh Ice, Piotr Paziński Pension, crime of Magdalena Parys Magician and the book Marty Dzido Loser. Mieczysław Karłowicz Philharmonic in Szczecin won the main prize in the field of architecture in 2015. Miesa van der Rohego. The European Capital of Culture in 2016 (including San Sebastian) was Wrocław, and we are presently on the eve of the announcement of the title winner for 2029 (finalists are Katowice, Lublin, Bielsko-Biała, Kołobrzeg). The European EU Heritage description was awarded in Poland, among others: the Lublin Union 1569, the Constitution on 3 May 1791, Łuzna-Putka Cemetery, Museum of Prisoners' Camps in Łambinovice in Opole, Wrocław residential 4th of WuWa, as well as Gdańsk Shipyard together with the European Solidarity Centre.
Polish creators and Polish institutions are present in all cultural activities of the European Union. The dynamics of their participation in the programmes is clearly increasing, stable, though not besides high. The ability to manage global cultural projects is present considered to be 1 of the highest competences of the management staff, a akin smooth movement in the global environment and networking activities. The Polish cultural and creative sector, which, as was mentioned at the beginning, has erstwhile "jumped" into deep water, present swims rather well in it, co-shaping the artistic scenery of Europe. The professionalisation of the cultural sector, peculiarly of large cities, is based on the capacity to manage multi-level human resources and diversity and is evolving towards transdisciplinaryity. If you apply the above conclusions to the ideological and aesthetic level, it should be stated that the 20-year integration with the EU has surely contributed to synchronizing the artistic trends of Polish art with Western art, comprehensive development, and above all allowed to deepen the axiological and intellectual dialog with Europe understood as an area for shaping attitudes of openness, inclusion, empathy (e.g. with refugees), tolerance towards people, artists and their creative fantasies and ideas for art. Of course, disintegration processes or re-nationalistic aspirations stand in the way of progressive change today. These phenomena should be considered due to the fact that the benefits of integration are enormous. You can see them with the bare eye – at least in the cultural sector.
[1] In 2000, cities that together with Krakow received the title of the European City of Culture were: Avignon, Bergen, Bologna, Brussels, Helsinki, Kraków, Prague, Reykjavik, Santiago de Compostela.
