Costa leader of the Culture Committee: “First battle on resources for the Erasmus program”

Silvia Costa is the President of the Culture Committee of the European Parliament. Elected by acclamation, the Democratic Party MEP is the first Italian woman of this term to be chosen for a top job at the EP. “Italy and the DP have been allocated this office a recognition of the work my group and I did for affirming the importance of culture, education and training policies,” explained Costa to eunews. During the latest term, Costa had already been member of the Culture and Education Committee, and Rapporteur of the Creative Europe Programme.

“Multi-Year Programmes such as Youth in action, Creative Europe, Erasmus Plus, and European Heritage Label have just been approved, and the 2015 Estimate Budget is going to be approved too: I am then going to ask the European Commission the monitoring data for both Erasmus and Creative Europe. We will fight for being sure there are enough resources for covering these crucial programmes,” added Costa, who said she hopes “to implement a proficient cooperation with the other Committees whose areas of intervention overlap with ours, such as cultural tourism and Internet cultural contents.”

No Vice Presidencies for EFDD MEPs even in the Culture Commission: the group lead by Nigel Farage, to which Five Stars Movement belong, was excluded and Costa seemed willing to help them after their past controversies. “We need to find a balance,” she said, “Farage did something despicable when he turned his back during the Plenary, still Five Stars Movement MEPs said they did not agree with this protest. Their representative into the Culture Commission complimented me for my election and I assured her we won’t have any prejudice against them during the works.”