WRITTEN QUESTION E-1514/96 by Markus Ferber (PPE) to the Commission (17 June 1996)

Subject: Eligibility criteria and deadlines for applications to the EU cultural support programme, Kaleidoscope

Can the Commission provide further details about the Kaleidoscope cultural support programme in response to the following questions?

1. According to the criteria for taking part in the Kaleidoscope programme, the Commission will only consider projects and events which start or take place in 1996. ((OJ C 114, 19.4.1996, p. 16. )) What are the Commission's grounds for this condition which is not contained in decision 719/96/EC ((OJ L 99, 20.4.1996, p. 20. )) setting up the Kaleidoscope programme?

2. Under the criteria for taking part in the Kaleidoscope programme, the Commission stipulates 14 June 1996 as the absolute deadline for submitting applications. As the eligibility criteria and the decision to set up the programme were only published on 19 and 20 April 1996, applicants had only eight weeks in which to liaise with partners from other Member States, for example, and draw up a detailed budget. Is the Commission not aware that high quality, innovative international cultural projects can hardly be organized under such time constraints?

3. What is the Commission's view of the fact that it will scarcely be possible, given the extremely short deadline for applications, to provide practical support for voluntary cultural work as envisaged in the preamble to the decision setting up the programme and that support for young people will, therefore, be restricted?

4. Is it the Commission's intention or does it consciously accept that, because of the programme's conditions of eligibility, Kaleidoscope should be open only to established creative artists and merely represent another source of finance for projects already planned regardless of the programme?

Answer given by Mr Oreja on behalf of the Commission (22 July 1996)

1. The Kaleidoscope programme (1996-1998) is the subject of an annual invitation to tender. This year the Commission is giving consideration to projects and cultural events which begin or take place in 1996 in order that the 1996 budget can be implemented in accordance with the budgetary rules in force, and in particular the rule of annuality.

2. and 3. While it is aware of the short deadline, the Commission recalls that, for reasons beyond its control, negotiations leading to the adoption of the Kaleidoscope programme were particularly long. However, although the programme was adopted only on 29 March 1996, the Commission published the relevant invitation to tender in the eleven Community languages on 19 April, i.e. within a very short space of time in view of translation requirements.

By way of exception, the Commission set the deadline for the submission of applications at 14 June 1996 in order both to comply with the budgetary procedure laid down and to select projects with all the attention they deserve. Thus the Commission is doing its utmost to ensure that cultural operators receive Community funding as soon as possible.

In January, the Commission distributed an information memo on the new Kaleidscope programme in all Community languages in order to give the parties concerned advance notice of the changes made in the new programme and the deadline set and thus enable cultural operators to prepare for the 1996 programme.

The invitation to tender for 1997 will be published in September 1996 in order to give cultural operators a longer period to prepare.

4. The Commission would recall that, in accordance with principle of subsidiarity, the Community contribution to the Kaleidscope programme is an additional source of funding. The Community contribution cannot exceed 25% of the total cost of the project.