Commission study shows cultural and creative sectors face continued funding gap, while #CreativeEurope support for SMEs proves to be successful

The European Commission has published a new study which finds that the cultural and creative sectors across Europe continue to face challenges to receive loans or equity finance for new activities. Barriers usually include the difficulty of assessing the value of intangible assets of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), their lack of business track records or scalability. Between 2014 and 2020, these obstacles prevented enterprises to access between €8 and €13 billion. At the same time, the study shows that EU's support for the cultural and creative sectors through its Creative Europe programme, worth €1.46bn in 2014-2020, is benefiting SMEs, which face difficulties to access finance.

SMEs have in particular welcomed the setting-up of the Cultural and Creative Guarantee Facility in 2016, which is expected to leverage approximately €1bn loan financing for enterprises and other organisations operating in the sector. Up until now, a total of 800 SMEs and organisations have received support in over 600 deals in 12 countries. For the future, the study recommends implementing a mix of financial instruments and technical assistance under the new InvestEU Programme. Alongside the expansion of the Guarantee Facility for cultural and creative sectors, these instruments could include co-investment with business angels and with venture capital firms, complemented by equity crowdfunding. The cultural and creative sectors are an important part of the economy, and play a key role in promoting cultural diversity and social development across Europe. With 8.5 million jobs, accounting for 4.5% of overall GDP, they are the third largest source of employment in the EU.

More information on EU support to audiovisual and creative sectors is available in this factsheet.

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