On 8 December 2025, Commission Executive Vice President Roxana Mînzatu and Commissioner Glenn Micallef hosted a high-level exchange on living and working conditions of artists and culture professionals.
The High-Level Roundtable on Artists’ Working Conditions brought together the chairs of the European Parliament’s CULT and EMPL Committees, social dialogue partners, cultural organisations, and artists. The Executive Vice President expressed her commitment to the sector within the framework of the Quality Jobs Act and also with the strategic vision outlined in the recently adopted Culture Compass for Europe, which aims to position culture at the heart of EU policymaking.
The Commissioner opened the exchange with a heartfelt speech emphasising his commitment to improving conditions in the sector and exploring some of the most significant issues faced by workers in the sector. The meeting was an important first step toward making this vision a reality, especially with the announced EU Artists Charter – a new tool that should set out fair working conditions for artists across the EU.
The artists present included Swedish actor Simon Norrthon, President of Scen & Film and Vice-President of FIA; as well as French ballet dancer and trade union leader Tristan Ihne of the SFA. Caroline Cartens, Dutch freelance opera singer and activist for freelancers also shared her experience as a professional in the sector. Together, these professional performers opened the exchange, sharing views, anecdotes and experience, giving unique insight into the lived experience of work in the sector.
FIA, FIM, UNI MEI and EFJ were then invited to speak as the workers’ delegation of the European social partners in the Live performance and Audiovisual sectors. Speaking time was limited in order to allow all participants to take the floor – that being the case, the trade unions limited their key messages to some concrete recommendations. These included developing effective social conditionality in public funding, linking it to building collective bargaining; encouraging Member States to continue the work of ensuring access to social protection for workers in the sector, taking proper account of their status, mobility and freelance and intermittent work patterns; addressing the ongoing issue of buyout contracts and the lack of return from IP rights; and raising the issue of generative AI and calling for the introduction of copyright-like to image and likeness in digital replicas. The trade union delegates also emphasised in the importance of proper and tailored application of EU directives and policy initiatives in the sector and the potential for improvement in this area. Collective bargaining and social dialogue must be the basis for addressing working conditions.
Many of these points were echoed by the other contributors with many shared concerns around the lack of worker clout in the sector, the precarious conditions endured by workers, the impact of AI and the need for collective bargaining as a strong basis for raising standards, emerging clearly from the various contributions.
The trade union Federations are committed to contributing to the planned work by the European Commission on a Charter for Fair Working Conditions for Artists and Cultural Workers to ensure that it can represent real progress on these priorities.
