Active Participation in European Cultural Policy

A critical reading of the Sector Blueprint and Culture Compass

#1 WHY THE ACTIVE PARTICIPATION SECTOR SHOULD ENGAGE WITH POLICYMAKING

By Giorgio Bacchiega

Between September and November 2025, two documents set the terms of debate on the future of European cultural policy, revisiting the question of what roles culture is expected to play in European communities. The first, the Culture Compass: Sector Blueprint, emerged from an intensive summer of co-creation involving thirty organisations, including Amateo, coordinated by Culture Action Europe. The second, the Culture Compass, was issued by the European Commission as a formal communication outlining strategic directions at EU-level through 2034.

THE PRACTICE-POLICY HORIZON
At first glance, practitioners might reasonably argue that their task is to make culture, not policy. Yet the conditions under which they create and gain recognition for what they do are channelled by regulatory logics that often remain invisible until their effects suddenly delimit what forms of engagement are deemed worthy of consideration. For approaches centred on active participation, where the emphasis is on people creating rather than consuming culture, the implications are particularly significant. In such practices, value cannot be fully appreciated by the outputs alone. Their significance lies above all in the processes they set in motion, through which participants gradually relate to one another in new ways and come to experience their own capacity to act, both socially and creatively. In this sense, involvement is not the successful delivery of a product but a shared experience that develops over time. When structural norms overlook process-based practices, participation loses its ability to reshape social relations and creative agency, demonstrating that policy documents cannot be treated simply as technical instruments, but as narratives that bring horizons of possibility into being.

THE TWO-COMPASS ALIGNMENT
In perspective, the proximity of the two Compasses invites comparison, though their relationship extends beyond a simple side-by-side reading. The Sector Blueprint is rooted in a highly diverse cultural field and approaches collaborative authorship as an opportunity for ongoing dialogue among organisations while building meaningful connections with European institutions. The Commission’s Compass, by contrast, positions policymaking as a governmental function, setting out a strategic model and flagship initiatives that will shape the2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework.

This asymmetry sets the stage for distinct interpretative positions. When sector organisations articulate a vision, they operate within democratic horizons, inviting reflection on whether they succeed in capturing the field’s complexity. When the Commission formulates policy, it speaks from institutional authority, defining the conditions under which participation in cultural life is recognised and, therefore, supported. Here, the questions multiply: what practices are endorsed? Towards what ends? And who is positioned as a cultural agent?

THE PARTICIPATION STAKES
Seen from this angle, a series of predictable risks arises. When participation is reduced to concerns of receptive access and its contribution is compressed into quantifiable indicators, cultural value becomes aligned with instrumental objectives at the expense of its intrinsic dimensions. This has concrete effects. Practices grounded in long-term, non-formal engagement do not always fit within models organised around innovation cycles or professional trajectories and become peripheral because they do not correspond to the ways their impact is assessed, rather than because they lack significance. It is within this lens that the two Compasses must be read, so that it is possible to map the territories each defines, exploring where each makes progress and where gaps remain, as well as identifying the blind spots across the landscape that fall beyond the cartographic reach. The question that follows, then, is not whether participation is affirmed, but how it is conceptualised and with what consequences.

Whether European policy can sustain culture to reach its full potential depends on how its frameworks recognise participation and on the capacity of the sector’s full ecology to engage with it as a legitimate actor.

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This series is intended as a critical yet constructive contribution to the Culture Compass debate, exploring where active participation challenges existing policy assumptions and where new frameworks may emerge. Future entries will address participation versus access, indicators and measurement, and the place of grassroots practices within European cultural ecosystems.

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Consulta Periferie Milano is a network-centric platform (formally a second-level association of undertakings or association of associations of undertakings) formed by 36 cultural, charity, trade, visual and performing arts organisations, cultural centres and local newspapers active in the peripheries of Milan with the purpose of drawing constant attention and find original solutions to the problems of the multifaceted peripheral landscape of Milan in cooperation with academic, political and societal forces.