Introduction

Abstract

Culture is one of the most puzzling and perplexing policy domains that the European Union (EU or the Union) has entered. The relatively contained EU remit for the development of a cultural policy, reflected in Article 167 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), in recognition of member states’ preponderant role in the field, should not hide from view an array of EU policies that are not meant to be about culture yet touch upon it. The limited cultural policy space that the EU possesses, in accordance with its competences, goes hand in hand with a number of EU policy venues where significant regulatory or financial choices are made with important cultural and political economy implications — those concerned with market-building and functioning, social development and cohesion, or the EU’s relations with partner countries and regions, including trade and cooperation for development. This is because of culture’s transversal nature, which allows for links to be drawn with various EU policy domains, its socio-economic impact, which facilitates the drawing of such links, in the light of the EU’s pre-eminent socio-economic focus, and also the recognition of culture’s potential to forge links between people and spread democratic and social values.