2007-2013 is the new EU programming period. New challenges, forces, strategies and positions will happen in the period. In any case, EU programs will follow as now: an opportunity to the mutual knowledge, a road for the cooperation among authorities and organizations, a way to produce innovation and, last but not least, a source of co-financing activities. Another thing is clear, the participation of multiple actors in the previous programs and the entry of new actors from the Central and Eastern Europe will multiply the competitiveness. Access to the participation in EU programs will be difficult and management will need to be much more efficient than now. Nevertheless, difficulty to access will help to make worthy at local, national and European level the participation in EU projects.
European sustainable participation is a long run matter. In the cultural field, the interested actors need to be extremely proactive in order to ensure their access to the information, the capacity to create and implement successful projects, the ability to contact and maintain partnerships and the creation of real impact at local level because of the presumable limitation of resources.. The right combination amongst creativity, constancy, technical knowledge and networking will allow to finish the marathon.
In comparison with other institution, EU sources of information are stable, regular, published and updated. By this reason, the training session will not focus in reviewing what is already easy to know but, in a very practical approach, in the delivering of the main concepts, abilities and approaches, adapted to cultural context, needed to warrant a successful participation in EU projects in a long term perspective. Cultural actors need to start to prepare the future now.