The Covid-19 pandemic decimated the market for creatives in Europe, causing a drop in turnover of over 30 per cent in 2020 alone. The music and performing arts sectors were hit especially hard, experiencing losses of 75 per cent and 90 per cent, according to the European Parliament. With little to no recourse to job protection schemes, freelancers were among the worst off. Yet despite the impact of the crisis, few political parties in Europe took the security of creatives up as a serious issue – that is, until the recent congress of the European Green Party (EGP) in Lyon, where party delegates approved the new electoral manifesto. 

The manifesto contains a call for “common European standards on employment, social guarantees, and working conditions in the cultural and creative sectors.” This would take the form of what the EGP terms a “European Artist Status” and a framework “to ensure good working conditions and minimum standards for artists and cultural workers across member states, particularly with streaming platforms”. 

There had already been discussion in the EU Parliament of protections for creatives. In November 2023 it voted in favour of sending recommendations for such a status to the EU Commission, and focused on three broad goals: forging a series of minimum standards for work, protecting artists from the threats of AI, and increasing artist mobility. If the Artist Status is enacted, it would be the first time that creatives in Europe will be able to access financial support in the event of another pandemic-like crisis, as well as access working protections that employed workers are entitled to.  

Art can bring communities together and offer a light in the darkness.

The status recognises creatives not only as producers of goods and products for commercial gain, but as contributors to European culture. They do the valuable work of forging and shaping new perspectives, challenging ideas, and finding common threads that link together our humanity. The pandemic showed above all else that art can bring communities together and offer a light in the darkness. Artists’ songs, films, online theatre productions and paintings provided much-needed distraction from the horrors unfolding around us. Indeed, many creative workers paused their careers to work on the frontline in vaccine centres, supermarkets, elderly care and other necessary roles.  

Greater recognition of the need for an Artist Status also stands as a long-overdue acknowledgement of the poor conditions in which many artists work. Artists often perform or create in unregulated workplaces; depending on their protected characteristics – as women, as members of the LGBTQI+ community, or otherwise – they are dehumanised to varying degrees. As a performing arts academic I work with students who experience exploitation, and, in some cases, harassment and abuse. Young women in acting and dancing roles face constant judgement of their appearance. This can lead to mental health issues including eating disorders and self-harm. Not all workplaces would be covered by the new regulation, but at the very least it begins a conversation about how to bring such issues to light and develop better protections.  

Valuing creative labour 

In light of the failure of creative industries to protect artists from exploitation, much of the effort to spotlight abuse and push for regulation has been grassroots-led. In the fight for fairer pay from music, film and television streaming platforms, for instance, artists and unions forged the #fairinternet4performers campaign. According to MusicGateway’s streaming royalties calculator, for every 100 streams Spotify pays an artist 0.37 euros, while Apple Music pays 0.47 euros, Deezer 0.44 euros and YouTube 0.16 euros. This is before splits are made with labels and writers, meaning that the figure received by musicians is often much lower.  

Across Europe, musicians and actors – including Javier Bardem, Sara Tavares, Katerina Tsavalou and Christopher Blenkinsop – recorded messages showing their support and demanding better terms and fairer pay. The #fairinternet4performers campaign wants clearer legislation on equitable remuneration. Streaming cannot be relied upon as sufficient income. This needs to change as part of discussions around the status of the artist in Europe.  

Part of the battle artists face is to get society to recognise creative labour as holding value. It has long been positioned as a luxury, and despite its documented success in contributing to the European economy, careers in the creative arts sector are seldom taken seriously. The Artist Status would therefore not only set minimum standards and provide a solid foundation for future-proofing the industry, but demonstrate that being an artist is a valid profession.   

A world drained of colour 

Part of the reason for the precarity of the creative industries is that it is powered to a large extent by freelance workers. In 2022, nearly a third of “cultural workers” in the EU were self-employed, according to Eurostat. This was compared to an average of 13.8 per cent in the whole economy.  

Self-employment accounted for almost half of all cultural employment in the Netherlands (47.2 per cent) and Italy (46.2 per cent). Not only, therefore, is a significant portion of creatives freelance, but freelancers are unable to access the fundamental rights – including holiday pay, sick leave, and maternity protections – given to employed workers. Many artists have consciously chosen to manage their own careers, yet this has been at the cost of their job security and a stable income. 

Since the pandemic, powerful works have been created that demonstrate how different our lives would be without art. At the Lyon Biennale in 2022, artists collaborated on a visual “Manifesto of Fragility”. Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck’s “We Were the Last to Stay”, also displayed at the Biennale, encapsulated the apocalyptic fears triggered by the pandemic. Through several large-scale installations, all in monochrome, he presented a view of a world drained of the vivid colours that the arts bring to it.  

Some feel that the restrictions on artistic freedom resulting from a lack of state support pose something of a challenge to European identity. “There is a broad political consensus that the overall situation of the Cultural and Creative Sectors is not sustainable for most professional authors, artists and performers,” Niklas Nienass, MEP for the European Green Party, explains. “When they struggle to make a living from their cultural creation, I would even call this a de-facto restriction of the freedom of the arts and expression, and a threat to our cultural diversity in Europe.” Nienass suggests that not supporting creative incomes is a clear political choice by governments, and recognising it as such is crucial to establishing clearer rights to such freedoms. A collective minimum standard of artist rights would be the first step.   

Employment parity  

The EU project has been most successful in setting common rights and standards across member states that improve the lives of everyday people – the working time directive, for instance, or common food standards. The artist status would help bring much-needed parity between employed workers and self-employed artists on issues such as healthcare, sick and holiday leave, and maternity leave.  

Indeed, the EU has an example of this in the form of the support and protection the French state gives to the arts. The “Intermittents du Spectacle” scheme provides unemployment insurance to artists who qualify by meeting performance or exhibition criteria. It not only protects artists themselves and recognises the seasonality of creative work and the need for artistic research and development, but it also defends the idea of artistic creation being a valuable contribution to society.  

The Republic of Ireland provides another example. It has been running a trial scheme of Basic Income for Artists in which a sum of 325 euros is provided each week over three years to support creative work. Such schemes, and the minimum income they model, should be considered when forging the minimum standards of the Artist Status.  

Another matter relates to how and whether the EU can fund artists working in countries whose governments may, for political or other reasons, want to restrict artistic freedom. In 2022 the Artistic Freedom Initiative released a report criticising Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary for cutting funding to the arts and for taking ever larger roles in arts institutions, thereby breaking the unwritten rule that art should be delivered at arm’s length from governments. The policies implemented by Orban “have been used to amplify the voices of artists whose beliefs align with those of the government,” it states, and “marginali[ses] those who challenge their agenda”.  

Polish artists have faced similar challenges, with the PiS government in particular seeking to censor LGBTQI+ artists. The EU must play a role in protecting freedom of expression and, through the framework on the status of the artist, enforce sanctions against member states. Artists working in contexts in which governments refuse to support them for ideological purposes should receive EU support to continue their activities. 

The minimum standard of artist protection needs to be generated in dialogue with European trade unions. Yet there must also be a clear mechanism through which artists’ voices can be heard beyond the unions. Across the EU, 21 member states have a musicians’ union affiliated with the International Federation of Musicians, and 24 have an actors/performers union affiliated with the International Federation of Actors (as yet there is no federation of unions specialising in fine art or design). Yet for various reasons, many arts professionals do not join unions. The membership costs might be prohibitive, or they may not appreciate or see the benefits of the protections that unions offer. Their voices must still be heard, however. If unions listen, they might get a better sense of what changes are required to attract a larger membership.   

The AI threat 

While the pandemic was the main driver behind the push for an Artist Status framework, the threats to artistic labour from AI are also coming into clearer view. A strike last year by the SAG-AFTRA union in the US was partly in response to a lack of clear guidance on how AI will interact with the film industry. As Susan Sarandon told the BBC, “If you can take my face and my body and my voice and make me say or do something that I had no choice about, that’s not a good thing.”  

Actors spoke of their fear that studios might use AI images of them to finish films – something they would not be compensated for. The deal SAG-AFTRA struck with studios ensures that “studios cannot create a digital replica of an actor without first obtaining their consent, and actors will receive payment based on the type of work the digital replica performs on-screen.” However, there remain questions around the extent to which this will be legally enforceable or dependent on the goodwill of studios. 

An artist must be considered a core change-maker and allowed to inhabit a secure place within communities if they so wish.

Similar concerns dog the music industry. The Taiwanese popstar Stephanie Sun had her voice replicated by AI, with the resulting songs then flooding Chinese social media, all without her receiving any payment. “How do you fight with someone who is putting out new albums in the time span of minutes?” she asked. “You are not special, you are already predictable, and also unfortunately malleable.”  

The Artist Status needs to address any exemptions EU countries have in their copyright laws that allow vocal data scraping. The autonomy of an artist must be protected from AI technologies. Their consent is paramount.   

Culture in a warming world  

One topic left out of the conversation around an Artist Status is how artists can meaningfully contribute to the fight against climate change. Part of the resistance to a clean energy transition is a fear that communities that developed around sites of resource extraction and production – mines and collieries, for example – will cease to exist once those sites are closed.  

I grew up in Yorkshire, and the social club in my area held musical and comedy performances. Mining communities often had a choir or brass band which came to symbolise a collective local identity. These provided a social glue. As the mines closed the cultural symbols began to disappear, and communities felt as if they were breaking apart, soon to be forgotten. 

The green movement needs to grow in recognition of the possibilities and opportunities artists can provide. Their work, whether it be musical performance, visual arts or otherwise, can both advance a green agenda and serve as a glue for communities experiencing upheaval. An artist must be considered a core change-maker and allowed to inhabit a secure place within communities if they so wish.  

Despite all this, it is unlikely that the Artist Status will be a priority issue in the forthcoming European elections, with more pressing matters on the table, such as the war in Ukraine and Gaza or the cost of living crisis. Even so, the European Green Party should continue to offer clear and direct support for such a measure. It would be revolutionary not only for creative workers but for its knock-on effects. These include the pathways to greater economic security that might open up for other areas of freelance work or the benefits communities will experience from the role of artists in post-industrial regeneration and a just transition.   

Europeans will also feel a common connection through the shared culture artists can create. A creative Europe is a stronger Europe and we must empower artists to progress European culture to a brighter future.