What Europe owes to culture
Paweł (Paul) Potoroczyn is the Director of the Bid for Lublin as European Capital of Culture 2029. He is also a Diplomat, producer, and writer. In 1992, he entered public service as president of the Polish Information Agency Interpress. He also served as Consul for Culture at the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles. He was the founder and first director of the Institute of Polish Culture in New York. In 2005, he became director of the Institute of Polish Culture in London. From 2008 to 2016, he served as director of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and from 2016 to 2018, director general of SWPS University. He is a member of the OEES Programme Council. Previously he was a member of the EFFE Jury, where he took part in the assessment of festivals.
When asked how many definitions of culture it knows, a large language model replied:
Short answer? A lot. Classic answer? At least 164. Honest answer? Potentially infinite.
Why does this matter?
Because what is hard to define is easy to marginalise. What resists simplification is easy to postpone. What resists simple metrics is easy to deprioritise.
So allow me one more definition. Water is the condition of life on earth. Yet it is made of two flammable gases. In this metaphor, culture is water. You rarely notice it – until it is gone. When it disappears, everything else dries out.
Let us look honestly at what Europe owes to culture – and how much space culture has been given in return.
The cultural sector demonstrated the link between cultural competence and the capacity to co-operate, innovate, and sustain complex societies. We measured it. We proved it. We already know this. Has it changed anything?
We proved that intellectual capital converts directly into economic value. This is no longer opinion. It is data. And yet – has it changed anything?
Over time, culture absorbed frameworks from other sectors: business scripts, protocols, technologies, the language. Then the flow reversed. Values-based governance. Inclusion. Meaning. Diversity. Respect. Resilience. Purpose. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG). Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). These ideas did not come from markets. They came from culture. And? Has culture been merely harvested for ideas?
For years, culture warned that economic growth without intellectual life leads to instability. That polarisation, declining trust, and democratic fatigue were not anomalies, but signals. We already knew this. Was anyone actually listening?
We are often told that culture is a luxury – something societies can afford once they become wealthy. This is false. Societies become wealthy because they invest in ideas, values, imagination, and trust. This is not belief. It is a pattern. The problem is not lack of knowledge. It is the failure to translate knowledge into political weight.
Culture also shapes how societies imagine the future. It can reduce fear – or amplify it. Polarise – or connect. That makes culture critical infrastructure. Not metaphorically. Politically. And yet it is still treated as decoration.
Europe today is strained by four corrosive deficits: A deficit of respect. A deficit of pride. A deficit of irony. And a deficit of shame. These are not metaphors. They are realities.
Respect for reason and civic norms cannot be legislated. It must be cultivated. That is the work of culture.
The same applies to pride – not exclusionary or nationalistic pride, but civic pride grounded in responsibility and values. Culture allows pride without coercion.
The erosion of shame may be the most dangerous deficit. Tolerance for manipulation, cruelty, dishonesty, and outright lies has increased – not because people approve, but because resistance has evaporated. Culture is capable of restoring it.
Finally, irony. Irony is not trivial. It is a civic competence. It allows distance. Critical thinking. Immunity to chaos, madness and lunacy. Societies without irony become fragile. Culture is where irony survives.
Coming from Poland, coming from Lublin – a city 40 second flight of a ballistic missile from war zone – I cannot conclude without mentioning the war. This is not a war over territory. Russia spans eleven time zones. It is not a war over resources. Russia sits on the entire periodic table.
It is a war over truth. Over memory. Over identity. Over the right to a future.
That is why universities, museums, theatres, and libraries are not collateral damage. They are targets.
Ukraine’s biblical resistance demonstrates that culture is not decoration, not optional, not a luxury for the wealthy.
It is part of critical infrastructure. It is part of survival.
I have worked in culture for decades – long enough to observe policies, long enough to recognise patterns.
We were often dismissed as idealists. Told that idealists have no future. But the truth is quieter and deeper: There is no future without idealists.
And if culture shapes people, and people shape the world, then culture shapes the world.
The question is no longer whether culture matters.
The question is whether Europe is prepared to act on what it already knows.
Because cultures that treat ideas as decoration lose their capacity for self correction. Societies that neglect imagination lose their resilience. And political systems that marginalise culture ultimately weaken their own legitimacy.
This is no longer a cultural debate. It is a strategic one.
If Europe wants to remain a space of freedom, responsibility, and reason, culture cannot remain peripheral. It must be treated as infrastructure.
Not later. Not symbolically. Now.
This text is the intervention of Paweł Potoroczyn during the EFA Roundtable between festivals, cities and EU Commissioner Glenn Micallef on 3 February 2026, launching the ‘About Europe’ conversation.
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