The European Union and culture

 The European Union and culture explains how and why the European Union has started to intervene in the cultural policy sector – understood here as the public policies aimed at supporting and regulating the arts and cultural industries. It is the first comprehensive and theoretically informed account of the Communitarisation process of the cultural policy sector.  

Before 1992, no legal basis for EU intervention in the field of culture appeared in the Treaties. Member states were, in any case, reluctant to share their competences in a policy sector considered to be an area of national sovereignty. In such circumstances, how was the Communitarisation of the policy sector ever possible? Who were the policy actors that played a role in this process? What were their motives? And why were certain actors more influential than others?  

This book will be of great use to all researchers and students of European integration and European public policy.

Contents1. Cultural policy as a contested area
2. Cultural policy at the heart of tensions between conflicting models of policy intervention
3. Cultural policy at the heart of tensions between governance levels
4. The Communitarisation of broadcasting regulation: the ‘Television without Frontiers’ directive
5. The Europeanisation of the regulation of book markets: fixed-price systems for books in the EU
6. The Communitarisation of copyright policies
7. Conclusion