Informing and implementing European cultural policy : citizenship, society and subsidiarity in Malta

Abstract

This paper considers Malta’s membership experience and its relations with European initiatives and programmes through the lens of cultural policy. This area is a matter of subsidiarity in the EU. However, since the 1970s and increasingly since 2004, several actions, in the shape of policies and funded projects, have encouraged growing levels of cooperation between European institutions and stakeholders in member states including Malta. This chapter assesses ensuing policy and strategy changes in Maltese cultural practice in relation to the prioritisation shown by the EU to the sustainability of economic models. It argues that cultural policy at EU level has progressively emphasised the instrumental use of cultural projects for economic ends, influencing Maltese policy that has taken this prioritisation to heart. However, democratic deficits observed at governance levels at both European and national levels, coupled with structural failures, have compromised cultural expression, thus limiting the achievement of both social and economic goals.