{"id":196,"date":"2016-10-04T18:03:01","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T18:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/?p=196"},"modified":"2016-10-04T18:03:01","modified_gmt":"2016-10-04T18:03:01","slug":"turkey-exits-e-u-s-creative-europe-program-reportedly-over-armenian-genocide-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/2016\/10\/04\/turkey-exits-e-u-s-creative-europe-program-reportedly-over-armenian-genocide-dispute\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey Exits E.U.\u2019s Creative Europe Program, Reportedly Over Armenian Genocide Dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROME \u2014\u00a0Turkey<\/a> is exiting the European Union<\/a>\u2019s Creative Europe program which supports the arts, including film and TV \u2014 a surprise move that comes as relations between the Turkish government and the E.U. become increasingly strained.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Turkey joined the ranks of non-E.U. member countries allowed to tap into Creative Europe\u2019s 1.46-billion-euro fund ($1.56 billion) to\u00a0support culture and the arts between\u00a02014 and\u00a02020. Creative Europe incorporates the E.U.\u2019s Media Program, which subsidizes production, promotion, and distribution of film, TV, and video content.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe European Commission regrets Turkey\u2019s decision and the fact that Turkish cultural and audiovisual operators will miss future opportunities for cooperation with their counterparts in the E.U.,\u201d an E.U. spokeswoman. \u201cAlthough this is unfortunate, the commission respects the sovereign decision of Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

The withdrawal, now under negotiation between the E.U. and the Turkish government, is to be effective from Jan. 1, 2017.<\/p>\n

According to Turkish daily Haberturk, the pullout is in response to a concert, supported by Creative Europe and performed in April by Germany\u2019s Dresdner Sinfoniker orchestra, in commemoration of the Armenian genocide.<\/p>\n

Turkey rejects use of the word \u201cgenocide\u201d to describe the killings of more than a million Armenians and other Christian minorities by Ottoman Turks during the 1910s. The issue continues to be a sensitive one for modern Turkey: In June, the German parliament\u2019s symbolic resolution declaring the killings a genocide sparked an angry reaction from the government of\u00a0Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.<\/p>\n

More recently, in the wake of the July 15 failed coup in Turkey, tensions between the E.U. and Ankara have worsened, partly because E.U. officials have criticized Erdogan\u2019s heavy crackdown against the coup\u2019s alleged plotters and sympathizers.<\/p>\n

To date, an estimated 2.4 million euros ($2.6 million) has been allocated by Creative Europe to support Turkish films and cultural projects, including the Istanbul Film Festival\u2019s Meetings on the Bridge co-production forum. It is unclear whether Turkey\u2019s pullout from Creative Europe will also affect the country\u2019s membership in European co-productions fund\u00a0Eurimages, which is overseen by the Council of Europe, not by the European Union.<\/p>\n

In any event, the withdrawal is a blow to the Turkish film industry since producers, distributors and fest and film market organizers will not be able to tap into the Media Program\u2019s soft money. It also symbolically weakens their ties with\u00a0Europe\u2019s creative community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a very unfortunate decision,\u201d said Basak Emre, co-director of Festival on Wheels, which promotes Turkish films. \u201cMany artists and cultural institutions will be affected. But we do not know the details of this decision yet,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROME \u2014\u00a0Turkey is exiting the European Union\u2019s Creative Europe program which supports the arts, including film and TV \u2014 a surprise move that comes as relations between the Turkish government and the E.U. become increasingly strained. In 2015, Turkey joined the ranks of non-E.U. member countries allowed to tap into Creative Europe\u2019s 1.46-billion-euro fund ($1.56 billion) to\u00a0support culture and the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions\/197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}