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The European Creative Industries Summit – a high-level conference involving the European Creative Business Network (ECBN) – is being held this year as part of Germany’s Presidency of the Council of the EU and taking place virtually. Today’s political event concluding a month-long discussion process will be attended by EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, the Director of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Martin Kern, and numerous entrepreneurs from across Europe.

Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier commented on the event, saying that there was hardly any industry that could operate successfully without the input provided by the creative industries. “Design,” the Minister stated“ adds creative value to products and the creative industries add significant value to our economy. Creative professionals should therefore be given better access to funding, not least at the European level.”

This year’s conference, which started on 24 September as a weekly online discussion process, takes a look at the new Research Framework Programme and discusses the industries’ prospects in a Covid-19 world.

The conference will also be used as an opportunity to present Germany’s Cultural and Creative Industries Monitoring Report for 2020. The report shows that the industry developed favourably in 2019 (before coronavirus), generating 174.1 billion euros in income, contributing 106 billion euros in gross value added, and accounting for a total of around 1.8 million jobs. At the same time, it points to a dramatic slowdown in the industries’ growth for 2020 due to the impact of coronavirus. Some parts of the industries such as video and audio streaming services, podcasts and gaming remain relatively unaffected by the crisis.