Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - Europeana : next steps {SEC(2009)1124}
Date: 2009-08-28
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU programme, access to information, cultural heritage, cultural policy, cultural transmission, digital technology, digitisation

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COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 28.8.2009 
COM(2009) 440 final 

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS 

Europeana - next steps 

{SEC(2009)1124} 

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COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS 

Europeana - next steps 

1. 

INTRODUCTION 

Europeana – Europe's online library, museum and archive – opened in November 2008 as part 
of the Commission's digital libraries initiative, aiming to make Europe's cultural and scientific 
heritage  accessible  to  all  on  the  internet.  The  European  Parliament1  and  the  Council2  have 
highlighted  the  importance  of  Europeana  both  as  a  showcase  of  the  cultural  heritage  of  the 
Member States on the internet and to provide access for everyone to that heritage. At the same 
time they have underlined the economic potential of making our cultural treasures available 
online as a source for creativity and new products and services in areas such as tourism and 
learning. 

This document looks ahead to the next phase of development of Europeana and its orientation 
for the future. It sets out the main challenges for the coming years in relation to 1) enriching 
Europeana’s content with both public domain and in copyright material of the highest quality 
and relevance to users, and 2) a sustainable financing and governance model. The objective is 
to ensure that Europeana and the underlying policies for digitisation, online accessibility and 
digital  preservation  give  European  culture  a  lasting  visibility  on  the  internet  and  turn  our 
common and diverse heritage into an integral part of Europe's information infrastructure for 
the future. 

In  order  to  gather  input  on  the  best  way  to  achieve  this  objective,  the  Commission  is 
launching  a  consultation  on  the  basis  of  a  series  of  questions  that  can  be  found  in  the  staff 
working  paper  accompanying  this  Communication.  Interested  parties  are  invited  to  submit 
their comments on any or all of the questions by 15 November 2009. 

2. 

EUROPEANA: A STRATEGY TO BRING EUROPE'S CULTURAL HERITAGE ONLINE 

2.1. 

The policy context 

The  i2010  digital  libraries  initiative  was  launched  in  September  2005.  It  built  on  earlier 
activities  sponsored  by  the  Commission  to  bring  Europe's  cultural  heritage  online  and 
followed up on a letter (dated 28 April 2005) from six Heads of State and Government to the 
Presidents of the European Commission and the European Council, suggesting the creation of 
a European digital library. 

For  the  general  public  Europeana  is  the  most  visible  result  of  the  initiative.  It  is  a  common 
point of access to an enormous and growing amount of content which has been digitised and 

1 
2 

Parliament Resolution on ‘i2010, towards a European digital library’ 27.9.2007. 
Council Conclusions of 20 November 2008 on Europeana, OJ C 319, 13.12.2008, p.18. 

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made available online by cultural institutions in Member States. However, Europeana is just 
the tip of the iceberg. Its creation and growth would not be possible without sustained efforts 
by  the  Member  States  on  digitisation,  online  accessibility  and  digital  preservation.  The 
Commission  has  worked  together  with  Member  States  to  give  these  issues  a  place  on  the 
political agenda and to ensure that policies across Europe go in the same direction. In 2006 
the  Commission  issued  a  Recommendation3  setting  out  a  series  of  concrete  measures  to  be 
taken,  and  it  monitors  how  Member  States  implement  the  Recommendation  and  the  related 
Council Conclusions, in collaboration with a Member States' Expert Group. 

The  Commission  has  also  facilitated  consensus  building  amongst  stakeholders  around 
practical  solutions  for  key  issues  affecting  the  online  accessibility  of  cultural  and  scientific 
material.  This  work  was  organised  through  the  High  Level  Group  on  Digital  Libraries, 
bringing together cultural institutions, representatives of rightholders and of technology firms 
and academics. It has led, amongst other things, to a model licence for the digitisation of out 
of  print  works  and  a  collaborative  project  between  publishers  and  scientists  to  measure  the 
effects  of  open  access  to  scientific  publications.  These  policy  activities  are  underpinned  by 
extensive 
the 
Competitiveness and Innovation programme and the 7th Framework programme for research 
and development. 

technical  work  co-financed  under 

the  eContentplus  programme, 

Europeana contributes to the dissemination of the cultures of the Member States and brings 
the  common  elements  to  the  fore  by  giving  high  visibility  on  the  internet  to  our  rich  and 
diverse cultural  heritage. It increases  the relevance of the individual  digitised collections  by 
offering 'virtual permanent exhibitions' of works which are held around the continent. 

The  site  also  helps  to  find  information  in  different  formats  (text,  sound,  audiovisual  and 
image)  and  to  compare  the  varying  perspectives  on  our  common  European  history  and 
heritage in the different countries. 

Furthermore Europeana stimulates and focuses further digitisation initiatives in the Member 
States by providing an overview of what material has already been digitised and highlighting 
the gaps in digitisation efforts across the Union. 

The value of Europeana to users is that it makes it possible for them to find through a unique 
interface  -  and  in  their  own  mother-tongue  -  digitised  cultural  content  from  trusted  cultural 
organisations across the European Union, and to use this content for work, leisure or studies. 

2.2. 

State of play 

Europeana  now  gives  direct  access  through  a  multilingual  interface  to  a  unique  supply  of 
more  than  4.6  million  digitised  books,  newspapers,  film  clips,  maps,  photographs  and 
documents from Europe's libraries, archives, museums and audiovisual archives. This number 
will  grow  rapidly  over  the  coming  years.  The  public  interest  in  Europeana  was  vividly 
demonstrated at the launch in November 2008. 

At present, more than 1.000 cultural institutions contribute content to Europeana (directly or 
through aggregators) and more than 150 institutions are participating in its partner network. 
This collaboration between different types of cultural institutions achieved through Europeana 
is unprecedented in its scale and potential. The expanding list of cultural institutions offering 

3 

Recommendation 2006/585/EC on digitisation and digital preservation , OJ L 236, 31.8.2006, p.28. 

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to make their content accessible through the service shows the strength of this potential and 
the commitment to the Europeana vision. Europeana has found a way to provide direct access 
to  Europe's  diverse  cultural  collections,  while  at  the  same  time  preserving  the  visibility  of 
these institutions to the end-user. Collaboration could be extended to other initiatives around 
the globe, such as the World Digital Library. 

An organisational structure is in place for the further development of Europeana. On a day-to-
day basis the site is run by the Europeana office, hosted by the Dutch National Library. The 
office is expanding to cope with the tasks of maintaining and updating the prototype that was 
launched  in  2008,  and  is  working  towards  a  major  release  of  the  site  -  Europeana  1.0  -  in 
2010. 

In the coming years the site will gradually be improved with new functionalities and services 
and an enhancement of those that already exist. Key issues to be addressed are search features 
and interfaces. Particular attention will also be given to developing Web 2.0 services to create 
communities of interest, as well as improving the multilingual features. Input for improving 
the  site  has  come  from  a  recent  survey  among  Europeana  users,  to  which  more  than  3,000 
persons  replied,  and  which  provided  positive  feedback  on  the  service.  While  upgrading  the 
site,  Europeana  will  continue  to  function  as  a  laboratory  for  testing  new  ideas  and  research 
results. Further promotion of Europeana is needed to make citizens more aware of the service. 

3. 

MORE CONTENT FOR EUROPEANA 

A condition for the successful further development of Europeana is that it should increase its 
collections. The Commission's policy target is to have 10 million objects accessible through 
the site in 2010. The number should multiply in the years thereafter. 

Feeding Europeana calls for sustained digitisation across Europe, and adding metadata to the 
digitised objects that comply with the highest standards. The Commission has therefore asked 
the  Member  States  to  step  up  their  efforts  in  this  regard,  and  to  ensure  that  the  digitised 
content can be easily made accessible through Europeana, including through  the  creation of 
national or thematic aggregators.4  

3.1. 

Types of content 

Overall, the contribution by the different Member States to Europeana is still unbalanced, in 
terms  of  both  number  of  objects  and  types  of  material  (see  part  2  of  the  staff  working 
document  accompanying  this  Communication).  The  major  efforts  made  by  France  to  bring 
content into Europeana, with a presence of some 47% of all digitised objects, are very visible. 
Some  other  Member  States  contribute  only  a  few  objects.  This  situation  will  gradually 
balance itself out as more collections from across Europe are brought into Europeana. 

In this first phase, some Member States (e.g. Poland, Hungary) have contributed mainly books 
to Europeana, whereas others (Finland, Luxembourg,  Estonia) have concentrated their input 
around newspapers and magazines or (in the case of Romania) images from museums. This 
leads to the paradoxical situation where classics from Europe's literature are available through 
Europeana in a range of languages, but not in the language of origin. For example, you will 
find the works of Goethe in French, Polish and Hungarian, but not in German. 

4 

Communication 'Europe's cultural heritage at the click of a mouse', 11.8.2008. 

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This situation has prompted comments and questions from users. The selection of content to 
be digitised and brought into Europeana is determined by the Member States and their cultural 
institutions, in line with their cultural and/or information policies. Nevertheless, to meet the 
expectations of users as to what they will find in Europeana, a particular effort may be needed 
in relation to specific categories of material. 

3.2. 

In-copyright content 

One of the key challenges for Europeana is to include in-copyright material, so as to avoid a 
‘20th century black hole’ — a situation in which much cultural material from before 1900 is 
accessible  on  the  web,  but  very  little  material  is  available  from  the  more  recent  past.  This 
requires  good  collaboration  between  cultural  institutions  and  rightholders,  in  full  respect  of 
copyright  legislation.  Such  collaboration  can  take  the  form  of  agreements  between  national 
cultural  institutions  and  rightholders  or  of  links  from  Europeana  to  sites  operated  by 
rightholders.  

A  good  example  of  the  latter  type  of  partnership  is  Gallica2,  the  site  of  the  Bibliothèque 
nationale de France. It gives free access to public domain material and provides links to the 
in-copyright content of French publishers. The publishers decide how much of their content 
they want to show through Gallica2, and users can acquire the full works from their sites. A 
similar model could be considered for Europeana. The advantage for the users is that they not 
only  get  direct  online  access  to  public  domain  material,  but  they  can  also  easily  find  in-
copyright  content  they  may  want  to  acquire.  The  advantage  for  the  publishers  would  be  a 
higher visibility of their works to a Europe-wide audience. 

In several European countries, for example in the Netherlands and Germany, rightholders and 
cultural institutions are exploring a different model that allows cultural institutions to digitise 
cultural  material  for  a  fee  and  make  it  accessible  to  the  public.  This  concerns  in  particular 
books that are out-of-print but in-copyright, as well as older newspapers.  

For the development of Europeana it is essential that such licences provide for the availability 
of the material across the EU. Indeed a French aggregator has had to withdraw photographs 
from Europeana, since it only had the right to disseminate the material on its own territory. 
There  are  other  examples  where  cultural  institutions  have  accepted  licences  that  restrict 
dissemination of the material to IP-addresses within the national domain. Such arrangements 
are  the  result  of  financial  considerations  –  a  licence  covering  the  whole  of  Europe  may  be 
more  expensive  –  or  they  may  be  related  to  legal  issues.  They  run  the  risk,  however,  of 
fragmenting  Europe's  digitised  cultural  heritage  into  national  silos  on  the  internet  and  raise 
questions  as  to  the  responsibility  of  publicly  funded  cultural  institutions  across  the  EU  to 
grant equal access to the services they offer on the Internet to all EU citizens. 

One of the areas where progress urgently needs to be made to facilitate digitisation that will 
benefit the content accessible through Europeana is the area of orphan works, i.e. works for 
which it is impossible or very difficult to trace the rightholders. In its 2006 Recommendation 
on  digitisation  and  digital  preservation,  the  Commission  asked  Member  States  to  put 
mechanisms in place to deal with the orphan works problem. Since then, most Member States 
have  made  little  progress.  In  the  context  of  the  High  Level  Group  on  digital  libraries  a 
memorandum  of  understanding  was  signed  by  the  various  stakeholders  on  diligent  search 
guidelines for orphan works. 

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The  2008  Green  Paper  on  Copyright  in  the  Knowledge  Economy5  followed  this  up  with  a 
series  of  questions,  in  particular  on  whether  legislation  is  necessary  at  European  level  to 
address orphan works and on how to tackle the cross-border aspects involved. Following the 
outcome of the consultation, the Commission will prepare an impact assessment on the way to 
tackle the orphan work issue, which will explore a variety of approaches that could facilitate 
the digitisation and dissemination of orphan works. 

Recently the issue of orphan works has attracted increasing attention as a result of the Google 
Book search settlement that concerns many of these works. The settlement was discussed at 
ministerial  level  in  the  Education,  Youth  and  Culture  Council  of  12  May  2009  and  in  the 
Competitiveness Council of 28 May 2009. The Commission was asked to present an analysis 
of the effects of the settlement, and it is currently preparing this analysis. 

In the context of digitisation of older works, there is a striking and highly relevant difference 
with  the  US  in  terms  of  copyright  legislation.  The  term  of  copyright  protection  has  been 
harmonised  in  Europe  and  in  the  US  to  70  years  after  the  death  of  the  author,  but  US 
legislation  includes  a  cut-off  date  of  1923  (works  published  before  1923  are  in  the  public 
domain). Therefore much material of European origin from before 1923 can be digitised and 
made  available  in  the  US  without  a  licence  agreement,  while  it  may  not  be  available  to 
European  citizens  through  services  such  as  Europeana.6  The  practical  consequence  is  wider 
online access to digital books in the US than in Europe, and solutions involving rightholders 
and cultural institutions should be considered in order to redress this situation. These solutions 
could include speeding up the creation of registries for orphan and out of print works - already 
underway  through  the  ARROW  project  -  or  the  pragmatic  use  of  a  cut-off  date  that  would 
impose a lower threshold for diligent search for works from before a certain date. 

3.3. 

Public domain content 

Much of the material accessible in digital format through Europeana is in the public domain; 
this means it is not or no longer covered by copyright and can in principle be accessed and 
used by all. This material is an important source of re-use by citizens and companies alike and 
a driver of creativity in the internet age. For this reason, the Commission has underlined the 
need to keep "public domain works accessible after a format shift. In other words, works in 
the  public  domain  should  stay  there  once  digitised  and  be  made  accessible  through  the 
internet".7 

In  practice  this  is  not  always  the  case.  While  some  of  the  cultural  institutions  explicitly 
indicate  that  the  material  they  bring  into  Europeana  is  in  the  public  domain,  others  claim 
rights  on  the  digitised  copies  and/or  charge  for  downloads.  A  few  institutions  apply 
watermarks and, in one case, viewing the material in a reasonable size is subject to payment. 
The  different  practices  reflect  the  wide  range  of  approaches  across  the  EU,  which  are 
sometimes dictated by increasing pressure on cultural institutions to raise direct income from 
the  assets  they  hold.  Requiring  payment  for  digitised  public  domain  works  also  reflects  the 

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COM(2008) 466/3 
In  its  recent  announcement  about  the  availability  of  Google  Book  Search  for  mobile  phones,  Google 
indicated  that  more  than  1  million  public  domain  books  were  available  to  US  citizens  through  the 
service. In Europe, the press-release issued by Google mentioned half a million public domain books 
only. 
Communication 'Europe's cultural heritage at the click of a mouse', p. 7  

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fact that digitisation has a cost. At the same time it seriously limits the cultural and economic 
potential of the material. 

From  a  legal  point  of  view  the  question  is  whether  digitisation  in  itself  creates  new  rights. 
Normally this would not be the case. However, the level of originality needed for the creation 
of  copyright  is  not  harmonised  at  European  level,  so  the  answer  to  the  question  may  differ 
from  one  Member  State  to  another.8  It  may  also  vary  for  different  types  of  digitisation  (for 
example the scanning of books is not the same as costly 3D rendering of objects). 

The issue of principle is whether it is acceptable to lock up public domain material that has 
been digitised with public money by public institutions instead of turning it into a pervasive 
asset for the information society. The latter approach is in line with the Community policy on 
the re-use of public sector information, as well as the OECD Ministerial Recommendation on 
Enhanced  Access  and  More  Effective  Use  of  Public  Sector  Information.9  This  issue  is 
essential for the functioning of Europeana, since in its conditions of use the site follows the 
policies of the contributing institutions. 

Similar issues arise when public institutions grant exclusive arrangements to private firms for 
the digitisation and exploitation of their unique public domain assets in exchange for material 
advantages. Such arrangements risk locking up public domain content, but in some cases they 
may be the only way to finance digitisation. This dilemma was expressed by the High Level 
Group  on  Digital  Libraries  in  its  report  on  public  private  partnerships  for  digitisation.  The 
Group recommended that "public domain content in the analogue world should remain in the 
public domain in the digital environment. If restrictions to users’ access and use are necessary 
in order to make the digital content available at all, these restrictions should only apply for a 
time-limited period."10 

4. 

FINANCING AND GOVERNANCE ISSUES 

In  the  Council  Conclusions  of  20  November  2008  on  Europeana,  the  EU  Ministers 
responsible  for  culture  underlined  the  need  to  find  a  sustainable  funding  and  governance 
model  for  the  service.  The  Ministers  invited  the  European  Digital  Library  Foundation,  the 
European  Commission  and  Member  States  to  work  together  in  this  regard  and  discussions 
have  taken  place  in  the  context  of  the  Member  States'  Expert  Group  on  Digitisation  and 
Digital  Preservation.  The  present  consultation  opens  up  the  debate  to  a  broader  set  of 
stakeholders as to how to guarantee Europeana the necessary autonomy for the future. 

For  the  further  development  of  Europeana  one  can  conceive  of  widely  divergent  models, 
ranging  from  a  fully  Community  funded  operation  to  a  model  in  which  the  private  sector 
plays a key role in running the service. The funding and governance model ultimately retained 
should take into consideration the vocation of Europeana to offer the widest possible access to 
cultural collections, the European scope and nature of the site, and also the prominent role of 
the cultural institutions that bring in their collections. Furthermore, it should take account of 
the  fact  that  the  costs  for  the  Europeana  office  represent  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  total 

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The  originality  criterion  has,  however,  been  harmonised  for  photographs,  databases  and  computer 
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Seoul, 18 June 2008. 
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/doc/hleg/reports/ppp/ppp_final.pdf 

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investments  by  Member  States  and  the  European  Union  to  make  Europe’s  cultural  heritage 
accessible on the internet. 

4.1. 

Financing the development phase (2009-2013) 

In its inception phase the European Commission has contributed financially to the creation of 
Europeana through the EDL-net project, co-funded under the eContentplus programme. The 
project, which had a budget of €1.3 million ended at the beginning of 2009. 

For the period from 2009 to mid-2011 the development of Europeana will be co-funded with 
€6.2 million through the Europeana 1.0 project, selected under the  eContentplus programme. 
In  this  phase,  several  Member  States11  as  well  as  a  few  individual  cultural  institutions  will 
contribute financially. 

Until  the  end  of  2013  the  Commission  can  continue  supporting  the  development  phase  of 
Europeana  through  the  Competitiveness  and  Innovation  Programme.  There  will  be  some 
further co-funding by the Member States and/or initial sponsoring by the private sector in this 
phase. 

4.2. 

Financing in the medium term (2013 and beyond)  

For  the  period  beyond  2013  additional  ways  of  financing  Europeana  should  be  considered, 
which strike the right balance between Community funding and other resources, and moving 
away from the present project-based financing. Complementary sources of financing could be 
provided through public private partnerships or through a more structural contribution by the 
Member  States.  Some  site  revenue  can  also  be  expected,  but  this  will  only  cover  a  very 
modest share of the total costs for running the service. Making the end user pay for finding 
the  content  through  Europeana  and  for  the  other  functionalities  of  the  site  is  not  an  option, 
since  this  would  seriously  jeopardise  the  take-up  by  the  users and  would  run  counter  to  the 
basic aim of the site. 

Public private partnerships for Europeana 

Public private partnerships for Europeana could take different shapes. A first model is private 
sponsoring, as Europeana develops further and attracts more users. Sponsoring could be given 
out  of  philanthropic  considerations  -  a  model  which  is  widely  used  in  the  US.  Sponsoring 
could also be given in exchange for a counterpart, for example advertising.  

Practices in the Member States differ as to the acceptability of commercial communication on 
sites  such  as  Europeana  that  offer  a  public  service.  This  may  also  depend  on  the  type  of 
commercial  communication,  since  the  presence  of  a  company  logo  in  the  background 
information is different from a banner that promotes a particular product. 

Another potential source of income would be payment for the links provided by Europeana to 
the  content  of  organisations  (private  and  public)  that  generate  income  from  this  content.  In 
other  words,  there  could  be  a  broker  fee  for  the  traffic  generated  to  the  sites  with  paid-for 
content. However, a public private partnership based on such links does not necessarily imply 
a financial relationship. The partnership between the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the 

11 

France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Hungary 

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French publishers through Gallica 2 is an example where providing these links is seen as part 
of the public tasks of the site. 

Drawing  upon  the  technological  solutions  and  skills  of  private  companies  for  enhancing 
Europeana is another possible model to improve the features of the site. Private partners could 
be  selected  through  a  procurement  process  (in  line  with  European  rules  on  public 
procurement) or their input could be part of a sponsorship link as described above. 

Further-reaching partnership  models could be envisaged  where  the private sector would be 
directly  involved  in  running  Europeana  and  generating  revenues  to  operate  the  site.  Such 
models would need to take into account a series of constraints. Obviously, Europeana should 
continue  to  pursue  the  cultural  and  information  policy  objectives  that  are  the  reason  for  its 
existence. The full agreement of the cultural organisations contributing content would also be 
necessary,  since  they  actually  hold  the  digital  material  that  is  at  the  basis  of  the  service. 
Lastly, such models would need to be set up in a way that avoids distortion of competition. 

Public funding for Europeana 

Sustained public sector financing would find its justification in the importance of Europeana 
as  a  vehicle  of  cultural  policy,  adding  value  to  fragmented  online  cultural  collections  that 
currently often lack visibility by combining them through a multilingual common entry point. 
Furthermore, a relatively small public investment in Europeana could generate a huge spin-off 
of creative and economic activity in areas such as learning and tourism. 

The  public  financing  could  come  from  a  range  of  different  sources.  One  option  considered 
and rejected by the European Digital Library Foundation is a financial contribution made by 
the cultural organisations who contribute content. These organisations comprise national and 
European  associations,  aggregators  and  individual  institutions  from  different  sectors.  The 
heterogeneity of this group is an obstacle to the design of a system of contributions that  all 
concerned would consider as fair. 

An increased contribution by the Member States could take concrete shape in the form of two 
basic models. The first approach would rely on the willingness of individual Member States to 
contribute,  as  several  of  them  did  in  the  start-up  phase.  This  could  be  a  quick  and  flexible 
option. At the same time, it would leave a wide area of insecurity for Europeana, as budget 
availability may vary from year to year. Moreover, this approach does not give the Member 
States a clear view of what is expected of them. 

The  second  model  would  be  based  on  a  distribution  key  through  which  all  Member  States 
would contribute in accordance with their GDP. This model would express the responsibility 
of all the Member States for the development of Europeana, but the risk is that its overheads 
might  turn  out  to  be  relatively  high  when  it  comes  to  formalising  the  model  and  the 
distribution key. In several cases, the contribution by a smaller Member State would actually 
be lower than the costs made for agreeing on its share. 

A Community contribution after 2013 would find its justification in the European added-value 
of  the  site  and  its  importance  for  demonstrating  Europe's  unity  in  all  its  cultural  diversity. 
However, the present project funding, based on open calls for proposals, is not a sustainable 
basis  for  financial  planning.  Alternatives  for  the  basic  funding  of  Europeana  need  to  be 
considered within the range of available policy instruments. 

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4.3. 

Governance issues 

The  European  Digital  Library  Foundation,  established  on  8  November  2007  oversees  the 
operations of Europeana. Founder members are European associations of libraries, archives, 
museums  and  audiovisual  archives,  as  well  as  a  number  of  major  individual  cultural 
institutions.  To  become  members  of  the  Foundation,  organisations  have  to  be  or  represent 
major  content  providers  to  Europeana,  and  be  prepared  to  comply  with  the  standards  and 
policies of the site.  

The  financial  support  given  to  Europeana  by  several  Member  States  has  raised  the  issue  of 
their influence on the governing bodies of the Foundation. The Commission and the Member 
States are not part of the formal governance structure of Europeana. Instead they are informed 
about  progress  and  provide  input  to  the  executive  committee  of  the  Foundation  through  a 
'funding  and  orientation  group'  which  is  part  of  the  existing  Member  States'  Expert  group. 
This is in line with the idea that it should be the members, as the main contributors of content 
and in view of their knowledge and know-how, who are responsible for the operations of the 
site. In addition, the Commission currently has a contractual relationship with the Foundation 
through the grant agreements for projects in which the Foundation is involved. 

Because of the expected inflow of new members, the EDL Foundation is preparing a change 
in  the  present  governance  structure.  The  follow-up  to  the  debate  on  the  medium-term 
orientation  of  Europeana,  including  its  funding  and  the  related  issue  of  accountability,  may 
require some further adjustments in the future.  

5. 

CONCLUSION 

In a short  period of time  Europeana  has established  itself as a reference  point for European 
culture  on  the  internet.  It  reflects  the  ambition  of  Europe's  cultural  institutions  to  make  our 
common and diverse cultural heritage more widely accessible to all. 

Further  efforts  that  build  on  the  achievements  already  made  and  a  close  collaboration 
involving all stakeholders are necessary in order to fulfil the promise of easy online access to 
books, paintings, maps, photographs, newspapers, film clips and audio from across Europe. 

This  paper  has  outlined  the  key  challenges  that  will  determine  the  further  development  of 
Europeana and has formulated a series of issues for debate to which stakeholders are invited 
to react. 

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