Events like the 2004 enlargement, the migration crises, Brexit, the Covid epidemic and the war in Ukraine have pushed the EU into the most severe crisis of legitimacy in its history. The EU’s motto, ‘Unity in Diversity’, has been gradually transformed by the EU’s neoliberal establishment into a utopia of post-national societies.
Culture has become a strategic tool in reinforcing this utopia. To shed light on the mechanisms of this cultural policy, this report examines the EU’s charter on the role of culture in society and the EU’s flagship funding programme for culture. In doing so, it asks the following questions:
• What role does the cultural sector have in counter-balancing the EU’s weakening legitimacy?
• How does official cultural discourse transform language to promote the EU’s social-engineering goals?
• What is at stake in the authoritarian politicisation of culture in an increasingly fragmented EU?
