Creative Europe Cooperation Call 2025: What went wrong and where things stand
The 2025 Creative Europe Cooperation Projects call (CREA-CULT-2025-COOP) has raised serious concerns across the cultural sector following the disqualification of numerous project proposals due to a technical flaw in the call’s design.
The online application system allowed coordinators to add associated partners to proposals without their consent or notification. In several cases, this pushed proposals beyond eligibility limits (an organisation could be part of no more than three project proposals), leading to automatic disqualification and affecting hundreds of organisations — regardless of the quality of the projects involved.
Following formal complaints by Culture Action Europe (CAE), the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) acknowledged the issue and stated it is examining shortcomings in the notification system and reassessing redress requests. Organisations are currently being contacted to confirm whether their PIC was used without consent. Organisations have been given seven days to respond; if they do not, it will be assumed that the PIC was used with knowledge and consent. The correspondence from the Agency also includes warnings that intentional misuse of a PIC could lead to administrative sanctions, including exclusion from future EU funding.
CAE has expressed concern that the current handling of the situation risks shifting responsibility onto applicants and undermining trust within the sector, instead of addressing the root cause: a flawed technical setup of the call.
