Cultural Rights & Artistic Freedom: Steps we have taken in 2024 & 2025

Festivals bring people together and remind us that a thousand different views can sit side by side. And that is the real treasure of democracy - its fragile, always a work in progress, beautiful strength.
Our e-magazine, Eye-to-Eye The Festival Quarterly, gives a voice to people from all over the world to share their views and opinions. In the Winter Edition 2025, contributors explored the worlds we do not know and the ones we fear we do. They steped into the spaces where theatre and freedom intertwine, where culture fights for breath in the corridors of power, where voices rise against the weight of silence. It questions how we hold onto democracy and how we shape the future as a space where imagination outruns fear.

On FestivalFinder.eu, we have been collecting stories from festivals across Europe — "Zoom-in" features that reflect how festivals respond to their local realities and broader societal shifts. Some examples: Conflictual Reconciliations and Festivals as Resistance.

Each year, the 70-Years-On Thinking Group distils key sectoral and societal shifts and frames them as points for reflection and action, evolving to mirror the “state of festivals” across Europe. As we step into 2025, we carry forward key reflections from the 70-Years-On Agenda Update 2024 on artistic freedom, financial viability, environmental sustainability, inclusivity, and the transformative potential of the arts. Ensuring artistic freedom and maintaining festivals as open and democratic spaces are high on the agenda. Artists, artistic leadership and programming must be protected from external pressures, allowing creativity to thrive without imposed compromise.

The 70-Years-On Conversations - Artists Words give the stage to a conversation between an artist and a 70-Years-On Thinking Group member. These conversations explore key challenges and opportunities for the sector, reflected in the 70-Years-On Agenda. At the end of 2024, Tiago Rodrigues, Portuguese actor, playwright, producer and Director of Festival d'Avignon, was in conversation with Haris Pašović and Tom Creed. Tiago reflected on how festivals can act as spaces for dialogue and collective reflection — and why, in a polarised society, these spaces matter more than ever.

In an online statement prepared for EFA's Arts Festivals Summit 2024, the yearly flagship event of the European Festivals Association, Iliana Ivanova, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education, and Youth, stressed the importance of identity, community building, and openness that festivals bring to our lives and are at the heart of the European project. "Freedom is something we must not take for granted (...) and is always something worth fighting for." Iliana Ivanova celebrated EFA's success and the vibrancy of its initiatives, including the European Festivals Fund for Emerging Artists - EFFEA and EFFE / FestivalFinder.eu.

Lech Wałęsa emphasised the importance of democracy in our societies and called for a world built on universal values and peaceful coexistence during his keynote speech at EFA's Arts Festivals Summit 2024. Wałęsa reminded festival makers, artists, cities and regions representatives of the chances they have to catch the moment and build on the opportunities and needs defined by the world. Former Polish President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, closely linked with the Solidarity movement and Poland's path to freedom in 1989, shared his journey and vision for the future of Europe. Read his article for Eye-to-Eye.

In the framework of the Arts Festivals Summit 2025, a workshop led by researcher Kirsten Xanthippe explored the role and limits of artistic freedom in today’s polarised world. During the session organised in partnership with Pearle* Live Performance Europe, participants examined the idea of art as a human right, capable of challenging norms and provoking necessary discomfort. The session addressed the fine line between freedom and responsibility, especially regarding incitement and harm. Read an article about it here.

Collective Actions

In response to the European Commission’s call for collective action in the Cultural and Creative Sectors, EFA has joined forces with IETM, EDN, Circostrada, and ASSITEJ to launch PAC, a cross-border initiative already in action. In 2025, the coalition undertook a joint consultation process to gather insights into the current state of citizens’ rights to engage with the performing arts on their own terms — both as creators and as participants. The survey, titled “The Right To Engage With The Performing Arts In Today’s Europe & Beyond”, was open from March to April 2025.

With the State of Culture Report, Culture Action Europe (CAE) has provided an alarming description of the state of freedom of artistic expression across Europe. EFA endorsed CAE’s ‘Call for Artistic Freedom and Autonomy of the Arts’. On 24 September 2024, CAE convened a meeting of networks over increasing political interference in the work of cultural organisations across Europe. We stand against restrictions on artistic freedom, freedom of expression, and organisational autonomy – all of which are fundamental to democracy. Read the full statement.
EFA has strongly supported and advocated for the inclusion of artistic freedom as a dedicated section in the European Commission’s Rule of Law Report. The growing limitations on artistic expression, as seen in many countries across Europe, highlight the urgent need for comprehensive monitoring of these violations at the EU level. Artistic freedom is not only protected by Articles 11 and 13 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights but is also a priority in the EU Work Plan for Culture. The Council of the EU has explicitly called for the protection of artistic freedom, recognising its vital role in upholding democratic values and human rights. It is essential that the Rule of Law Report reflects the critical importance of safeguarding this fundamental right.

EFA joined the petition ‘RESISTANCE NOW: FREE CULTURE’ by the European Theatre Convention, Opera Europa, Prospero – Extended Theatre platforWiener Festwochen. It was signed by over 200 organisations and artists from 39 countries, representing 180 major national theatres, operas, festivals, and performing arts venues. Addressed to the European institutions, the petition advocates for concrete actions to safeguard culture in its diversity from censorship, constraints and bans. Available here.
As part of the Perform Europe consortium, EFA stands in solidarity with all Perform Europe artists, partners, and the wider artistic community, who have faced challenges in creating and sharing their work freely. Read the message in support of artistic freedom.
In June 2025, EFA signed the Bratislava Declaration, which calls for unified European action to protect artistic freedom and counter government interference in culture. This Declaration arises from a shared and urgent need to resist the threat to artistic freedom across the Member States of the European Union. We call for a robust legal response to the growing influence of governments that seek to control and interfere with the cultural and creative sectors and undermine internationally agreed human rights standards. This Declaration was issued during the International Conference Open Culture! organised by Open Culture! Platform on 29–30 May 2025 in Bratislava, Slovakia.