The bureaucratic time and the artist time are not the same: bureaucracy is tempted to give answers, whereas artists are looking at the complexity of what reality is.

Corina Şuteu

President, Filmetc, Making Waves Film Festival, NYC

A visa policy is led by the Ministry of the Interior and not by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, which is usually more open and relaxed on this matter. The Ministry of the Interior is much more focused on security issues and sees visas as a tool to regulate entry on its territory.

Diederik Paalman

DG Home, Deputy Head of Unit of Visa, European Commission

They – the rest of the world – think Europe is a sort of economic entity. Therefore we have to become political, we have to become more cultural. Because I do not want to sell Europe as an import-export club.

Michael Reiterer

Senior Advisor, Asia & Pacific Dept, European External Action Service

This debate on Europe (…) is taking place with young people. Are they not more connected to the local, and the global through digital information?

Katelijn Verstraete

Regional Director, East Asia Arts & Creative Industries, British Council

The uniqueness of this project is that we are trying to respect diversity, implementing solidarity, to cooperate and to create a political experiment. I see the major role of the EU as an enabler in this process, on top of what the Member States may do, not as an entity which should capture one image, frame it and say this is European culture.

Xavier Troussard

Acting Director, DG Education & Culture, European Commission

We should concentrate first on having the basic rights on where the European Union can do things, where the Member States are absolutely unable to do things on their own. And then we can prove our value and build from that. Renilde Steeghs

Ambassador for Cultural Co-operation, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs

We need to build things about how we go, about understanding how we position ourselves, how we engage, how we converse, through culture, through the economy (…). How can you have a dialogue with somebody if you cannot really think about what collaboration looks like?

Andrew Senior

Expert in Creative Economy - Director, Andrew Senior Associated Ltd.

I would like to see what more Europe could actually mean. For example through more political leadership to help facilitate smart EU policies and dealing with culture and EU’s external actions. I would like to see a European University on Tahrir square in Cairo and not just an American university. I would like to see more visas for artists and other professionals to come to work in Europe. I would like to see more content and heritage uploaded on Europeana. I would like to see less bureaucracy for small cultural organisations when they are applying for a grant on the European level. I would like also to see less fragmentation on copyright management of the European Union. And I would like to see less over-emphasis on the economic value of culture. Marietje Schaake

MEP

If we believe that Europe has a role to play in the political domain, in the domain of sustainability, in the domain of climate control and all these things, then it would be crazy to ignore the cultural dimension as a the part of that larger whole. And even if European culture is little more than the sum of national cultures, it is a bloody interesting combination of national cultures! Alexander Rinnooy Kan

Professor of Economics & Business, University of Amsterdam

If we have an economic pillar, we have a political and a cultural pillar and society seems to be healthy if those three are in balance. We are way outbalanced now: the economic pillar is far too strong for the political pillar, for the ideological argument, but also for the cultural pillar. Charles Esche

Director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven

Diversity currently is considered a weak point in all fields of EU politics – with the exception of culture. Instead of confessing weakness a European Foreign Cultural policy can communicate strength. Markus Appenzeller

Director & Founding Partner of MLA+

If we believe that Europe has a role to play in the political domain, in the domain of sustainability, in the domain of climate control and all these things, then it would be crazy to ignore the cultural dimension as a the part of that larger whole. And even if European culture is little more than the sum of national cultures, it is a bloody interesting combination of national cultures!

Lars Seeberg

Artistic Advisor, Former Sec Gen Aarhus Festival

The Nation State as such is totally a construction: what we feel for it in terms of habits, traditions, countryside or nature could exist without the notion of Nation. Janne Teller

Writer, Former UN & EU Official

What we are looking for is shared objectives, joint thinking, strength in intersections – not necessarily something that is common to all Europeans. Katherine Watson

Director, European Cultural Foundation

There is a need for the EU’s actions in culture to genuinely reflect the diversity of the population, the ethnic composition of Europe. Rod Fisher

Director, International Intelligence on Culture