€200m post-Brexit funding shortfall piles misery on UK creative sector

Rocket Entertainment Group CEO and filmmaker David Furnish has warned that lost opportunities and increased red tape are threatening the future of creative industries as new analysis suggests that the UK arts and film industries may have missed out on nearly €200m in EU funding.

The EU has increased the budget of its flagship cultural development programme, Creative Europe, by 66% to €2.44bn. Had Brexit never happened, the UK’s creative industries may have received an additional €184m, based on the percent of total funds they received last cycle. Despite promises during and after the referendum to match lost EU funding, the only successor provided by the UK government, the Global Screen Fund, provided just £7m in its first year.

At a live evidence session of the cross-party UK Trade and Business Commission, witnesses said the loss of Creative Europe funding and access to EU creative networks has been damaging both financially and artistically. 

Furnish told the UKTBC Thursday that issues with visas and customs are hampering the ability of British artists to grow their reputation at home and abroad. He emphasised that many of the UK’s most successful acts, like Ed Sheeran and Elton John, got invaluable experience and won fans touring Europe early in their careers.

One witness representing the theatre sector said the previous “seamless and easy” process for touring the EU had been replaced with a regulatory maze that led many companies to pull out of Europe altogether, and vice versa.

Last year the UK Trade and Business Commission highlighted how the increased red tape and disruption led to a 45% drop in British musicians performing at European festivals alongside increasing the cost of festival tickets and hampering the UK’s fashion and textile industries.

David Furnish, CEO of Rocket Entertainment Group, said:

“In the past, a young artist could load up a van of gear, jump in the van, go across over to Europe, and do all the performing that they wanted. Now they face a landscape of complicated carnets, additional costs associated with carnets, issues in relation to cabotage and trucking which makes things increasingly difficult for them.

“For a young, up-and-coming generation of artists it’s a roadblock…they don’t have the management and the business support in order to be able to cut through the red tape and get out on the road and learn their craft.”

Roise Goan, Artistic Director of Artsadmin, said: 

"The loss of Creative Europe funding for us is the major issue… in addition to that income, what that opportunity created was multilateral exchange with colleagues in Europe; it supported the mobility of artists, the mobility of artists’ projects, the exchange of ideas.

“Despite promises that there would be some replacement fund for Creative Europe, all of our partnership projects are currently reapplying for creative funding and we have been completely excluded from that process.”

Deborah Annetts, Chief Executive of the Independent Society of Musicians and UK Trade and Business Commissioner, said: 

“British filmmakers, musicians, artists, authors and designers are the greatest in the world. They are a cornerstone in the UK’s global influence and soft power.

“"At a time when we desperately need growth in the UK economy the Government urgently needs to replace this lost EU funding and root out the mountains of red tape which Brexit has imposed on the creative industries. From cabotage and carnets to work permits to musical instrument certificates, the burden of all these new requirements are causing great harm to one of our flagship industries.”