EU outlines how culture venues will re-open

EU museums

Museums lost up to 80 per cent of their incomes due to Covid-19. Image: Pixabay

The EU has outlined how culture venues will re-open. The guidelines aim to provide a coordinated approach in line with the specific national, regional and local conditions. The number of tourists visiting Spain for cultural reasons rose from 7.1 million in 2015 to 14.4 million in 2019.

The guidelines are also expected to guide the design and implementation of measures and protocols in EU countries to cover both the safe reopening as well as the sustainable recovery in the cultural and creative sectors.

Vice-President for Promoting our European Way of Life, Margaritis Schinas, said, “Culture helped people cope with the impacts of lockdowns and social distancing. It is now our turn to accompany the sectors in their path to reopening. We need coordinated and tailor-made efforts across the EU to allow the culture world to safely and gradually resume its activities and be more prepared for future crises. The cultural and creative sectors are strong European assets and are important for Europe’s sustainable recovery, increased resilience of European society, and more generally, our European way of life.”

Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel added, “The cultural and creative industries and sectors have paid a heavy toll since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak. At the same time, the crisis highlighted their importance for our society and economy. With the increased vaccine uptake, gradual lifting of restrictions, including in the field of culture is taking place. The aim of these guidelines is to facilitate coordination of Member States’ measures at EU level. Simultaneously, a safe re-opening of cultural settings should go hand in hand with a range of actions to ensure the sustainable recovery and resilience of the entire sector.”

The guidelines recommend the following measures and protocols:

  • The lifting of all restrictions should be strategic and gradual, with a restricted number of participants at the beginning to assess the epidemiological situation;
  • Cultural establishments should have a preparedness plan detailing protocols of actions when Covid-19 cases are detected;
  • Targeted information and/or ad-hoc training should be made available for all staff in cultural establishments to minimise risks of infection;
  • Vaccination of persons working in cultural settings should be promoted to ensure their and the public’s protection;
  • Participants can be asked proof of negative Covid-19 test and/or vaccination and/or Covid-19 diagnosis in order to be admitted to the venue. Depending on the local circulation of variants, this requirement can be extended to fully vaccinated individuals;
  • Establishments should ensure that the contact details of the audiences are available in case they are needed for contact tracing;
  • The establishment should put in place targeted protective measures: maintaining social distancing whenever possible, clean and accessible hand-washing facilities, appropriate ventilation, and frequent cleaning of surfaces. The use of facemasks by attendees is an important complementary measure.

The wide-ranging restrictions, set in place since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic to protect the health of citizens, have resulted in severe economic difficulties for a large proportion of the sectors, particularly for activities based on venues and visits as confirmed by the 2021 Annual Single Market Report. For example, cinema operators in the EU report a 70 per cent drop in box office sales in 2020, music venues report a 76 per cent drop in attendance and museums lost 75-80 per cent of their revenue.


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Deirdre Tynan

Deirdre Tynan is an award-winning journalist who enjoys bringing the best in news reporting to Spain’s largest English-language newspaper, Euro Weekly News. She has previously worked at The Mirror, Ireland on Sunday and for news agencies, media outlets and international organisations in America, Europe and Asia. A huge fan of British politics and newspapers, Deirdre is equally fascinated by the political scene in Madrid and Sevilla. She moved to Spain in 2018 and is based in Jaen.

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