Workshop Report: Exploring Future Pathways of EU International Cultural Relations

Since 2016 the EU launched its Strategy for Culture in International Relations. Typical for this strategy is its focus on cultural relations and its intention to facilitate transnational cooperation between non-governmental actors, civil society representatives, professionals from the creative and cultural sectors, and ordinary citizens. Yet, the EU has thus far struggled to successfully combine cultural diplomacy – investing in culture to advance EU interests – with cultural relations – investing in culture to develop spaces of engagement between several European and non-European actors to allow for intercultural dialogue and transnational interaction. While international cultural relations are deemed central to EU action in the field of culture and are included in the Cultural Compass and in the recent AgoraEU Programme, it turns out to be challenging to make EU investments in international cultural projects more horizontal, inclusive and participatory.

This report examines some of the most important reasons why the EU struggles in its attempts to successfully engage in international cultural relations. It does so by focusing on a series of so-called ‘dissonant entanglements’ that complicate cultural relations such as persisting power asymmetries, unfair cultural practice, and misalignments between funding requirements and the needs of those applying for the funding. The report starts with an elaboration of what is meant by the term ’dissonant entanglements‘ and how this concept is used. Then it will examine the most important features of each dissonant entanglement, and how these affect international cultural relations. Consequently, the report focuses on the root causes of these dissonant entanglements providing necessary insights into how they have come into being. Such insights are needed for the final part of this report: how to constructively work on future pathways of culture in international relations.

The report is the result of the Workshop “Future Pathways of Culture in International Relations” which was organised by the University of Amsterdam in February 2026 as part of the ValEUs project in close association with the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies, EUNIC Global and DutchCulture. Thirty globally active cultural practitioners ranging from representatives of national cultural institutes to cultural organisations, independent cultural actors and international networks came together to discuss the most important dissonant entanglements within the field of international cultural relations. They exchanged ideas about how EU international cultural relations could be made future-proof and shared concrete methods to make practices fairer and more inclusive, addressing equality, inclusion, decoloniality, and the allocation of financial resources.