EU Parliament: Status of the artist. Proposals for safeguards and better working conditions for cultural professionals

Proposals for measures to improve living and working conditions for professionals working in the art, cultural and creative sectors. This is the focus of the legislative initiative resolution, adopted by the European Parliament today. MEPs stress that “the gaps between national social systems, different national definitions of artists and rules applying to self-employed workers create unfair conditions”. A statement explains that the sector, employing 3.8% of the EU’s workforce and accounting for 4.4% of GDP, “is insufficiently protected”. Since the sector “is characterised by atypical working patterns, irregular income and fewer possibilities for social bargaining, there is a higher risk of underpaid or unpaid work”. Parliament calls for an EU framework combining legislative and non-legislative tools “to improve social and professional conditions and create a fair and equal situation for all EU artists and cultural professionals”.

“We need to dispel the myth of the ‘starving artist’”, said the co-rapporteur of the Culture and Education Committee, Spanish MEP Domenec Ruiz Devesa. “Cultural and creative professionals do not choose to be in a precarious situation; this is a design flaw of systems ill-suited to their specific working conditions and the power imbalances in the sector. We need the political will to establish an EU framework for the social and professional situation” of cultural professionals.

After Parliament’s vote, the Commission now has three months to reply by informing the Parliament of the steps it intends to take.
Gianni Borsa