The European Commission’s “A Decade of Creative Europe” report (COM(2025) 768 final, 17 Dec 2025) confirms what many applicants feel: massive and rising oversubscription in European Cooperation Projects—463 submissions in 2021 → 831 in 2023, with success rates dropping 27% → 17% (stable budget, higher demand).It also notes that many beneficiaries still experience high application costs (73% in CE1; 66% in CE2).So here’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation using a conservative €25,000 per proposal (staff time + overhead), focusing only on applications that don’t get funded:

• 2021: ~338 not funded → ~€8.45m “lost” effort
• 2022: “almost 700 proposals” submitted (EACEA), and 169 invited to Grant Agreement Preparation → ~€12.8–€13.3m not funded effort
• 2023: ~690 not funded → ~€17.24m “lost” effort

Total (2021–2023): ~€38.5–€39.0 million in application capacity that never turns into funded cultural work—just within this one action.This is not an argument against Creative Europe. It’s an argument for smarter access and scaling, especially as the Culture Compass for Europe talks about simplification and future funding architecture (AgoraEU).

Sources:

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/decade-creative-europe European Commission, A Decade of Creative Europe — COM(2025) 768 final (17.12.2025).

https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2023-06/EACEA_AAR_2022_en.pdf EACEA, Annual Activity Report 2022 (notes “almost 700” Cooperation proposals).

https://www.eacea.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/selection-results-creative-europe-culture-european-cooperation-projects-call-id-crea-cult-2022-coop-2022-09-30_en EACEA, Selection results — CREA-CULT-2022-COOP (30.09.2022). (EACEA)

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_2628 European Commission, Culture Compass for Europe (2025).