Presentation of the work programme of the Antenna of Creative Europe Desk
A press conference has been held today at the Provincial Government to present the work of the Antenna of Desk Creative Europe, which has been supported by the European Commission.
The participants were addressed by the following persons: Slaviša Grujić, Provincial Secretary for Culture and Public Information, Siniša Lazić, Director of the European Affairs Fund of AP Vojvodina and Luka Kulić, Coordinator of the Antenna of Creative Europe Desk.
According to Secretary Grujić, the Provincial Secretariat for Culture and Public Information strongly supports the work of the Antenna of Creative Europe Desk, whose establishment was initiated by the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, so as to take care of projects in Vojvodina in the most creative and best way possible, which would be supported by the European Union, and which would cherish our specifities and good ideas. The relevant secretary emphasised that in that way, the cooperation of cultural institutions, European Affairs Fund of AP Vojvodina, secretariats and ministries would allow the implementation of quality and good projects, which would promoted cross-border cooperation, networking of cultural institutions and work on literary translation and translation.
The Fund’s Siniša Lazić indicated that the agreement on the approved project was signed on 5th May 2015, and thus the work and activities of the Antenna of Creative Europe Desk were officially approved by the European Commission. The total value of the project somewhat exceeded EUR 81,000.
Director Lazić added that in November 2014 the agreement between the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia and European Affairs Fund of AP Vojvodina was signed, which defined the establishment of the office called Antenna of Creative Europe Desk. It created conditions for the regular implementation of activities related to the dissemination of information on the programme and public calls for proposals, training at interested institutions, advisory work and technical support to potential applicants and overall promotion of the Creative Europe programme – Culture sub-programme in Vojvodina. Thus, the scope of activities of Creative Europe Desk Serbia was extended and territorial coverage and the implementation of activities and project within the Creative Europe programme were ensured in the whole country. The Antenna of Creative Europe Desk officially started working on 1st January 2015, seated in the premises of the European Affairs Fund of AP Vojvodina.
In 2015 and it the following years, the Antenna of Creative Europe Desk plans to hold a series of campaigns to promote the training programme, workshops and discussions in AP Vojvodina in accordance with the Action Plan and in that way to help institutions and organisations to submit their project proposals, as well as to implement them successfully. A part of the activities has already been ongoing. The mission of the Antenna is to take care of the specific needs of AP Vojvodina – building of the programming and organisational capacities of cultural institutions and organisations operating at the level of the province, maintenance of cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and internationalisation.
“The fact that cultural industry needs to be improved and enhanced, both in Europe, and in our case Serbia, as a country participant in the programme, has also been supported by the envisaged budget that exceeds the ones in the previous programmes (EUR 1.46 billion). Moreover, the recent visit of the Council of Europe’s representative has given an example and acknowledgement of support both for the Provincial Secretariat for Culture and Public Information and institutions engaged in culture in the province, placing an emphasis on the importance of utilising European funds as alternative sources of funding, in addition to the regular budgets of those institutions”, concluded Lazić.
Luka Kulić reflected on the achieved results, on the basis of one-year experience in the work of the Desk and Antenna. The results are not bad, however, they could be much better because the objective of the programmes is not to apply only once, but for the projects to be sustained, expanded, enriched and in that way revitalised, so that they could become self-financing. Therefore, we as a team at the European Affairs Fund are available to everyone who wants to commence the implementation of some projects, to advise or assist them in the implementation.
