Brussels, 19 May 2026

IMPALA welcomes the draft report by MEP Rapporteurs Emma Rafowicz and Alice Kuhnke on the future AgoraEU programme, which will replace the current EU “Creative Europe” programme for the cultural and creative sectors from 2028 onwards.

Recognising the economic, social and cultural value of Europe’s music sector and the various challenges it is confronted with, the report proposes to introduce a specific music strand to help “address structural imbalances throughout the entire (music) value chain”.

IMPALA’s Executive Chair Helen Smith said: “We welcome the ambition shown by the European Parliament for culture, and in our case specifically for music. An ambitious budget for culture is an investment for the future. As far as music is concerned, a dedicated music strand is a long-running ask of the sector. The current proposed budget  for music is a good starting point but it needs to increase if we are to achieve the sector’s potential. It’s not just about the overall amounts – which are still relatively small in the broader scheme of the overall EU budget – but also about introducing a coordinated sectorial approach to boost Europe’s music ecosystem”. 

In terms of budget, the European Parliament has separately called for an increased budget for the AgoraEU programme as a whole. With this new report, the Parliament proposes to allocate just under half of the AgoraEU financial envelope to the Culture, Music and Media strands of the Culture programme, with a minimum 15% of this budget allocated to the Music strand. In light of the challenges faced by the sector, IMPALA sees the proposed budget allocation for music as needing to increase.

IMPALA’s Executive Chair Helen Smith continued: “We thank MEP Rafowicz and MEP Kuhnke for their analysis of the music sector’s needs. The report rightly focuses on strengthening the sustainability, competitiveness and independence of the music sector, and seeks to address market concentration, the power of digital platforms and challenges posed by AI. The report also highlights strategic questions of discoverability of European works, access to finance for independent and SME music businesses as well as cross-cutting priorities such as equity, diversity and inclusion, and sustainability. The report’s proposal for a European Music Observatory is also timely and aligned with the industry’s priorities: this is something the European music sector has been seeking for years now as there is a clear need for public mapping of key indicators”.

Helen Smith concluded: “The report’s focus on independence and Europe’s sovereignty reaches similar conclusions on key aspects to IMPALA’s own analysis and recommendations with our recently published action plan for a European industrial policy for culture. We now look forward to discussing this report with the European Parliament and the Council, to ensure that the AgoraEU programme can play its part in helping to unlock the full potential of Europe’s cultural ecosystem, and within that of music which needs to get a share of the overall budget that is commensurate with the sector’s potential for growth as well as the challenges it is facing. Using ongoing EU budget discussions to match ambition for culture with financing is one of the key recommendations of our industrial policy action plan. We would also like to see a greater focus of the report on strengthening structures that bring scale and investment in artists and new music, and on helping independent companies grow”.