How to fight the culture war?

An interview with André Wilkens, director of the European Cultural Foundation

(photo: Gerlind Klemens)

For a long time, Europe sold itself as a space of peace and free markets, founded on the idea of reconciliation symbolised by a blue flag with yellow stars and an Ode to Joy as its anthem. Today, Europe finds itself forced to defend not just its borders, but the very idea of Europe itself. And it is doing so at a moment when ideas are simultaneously targets, commodities and social-media memes.

This is where what political shorthand loosely calls a “culture war” truly begins, not as a dispute over concerts or exhibitions, but as a struggle over meaning: who belongs, who is considered “normal”, whose experiences are recognised and whose anger is converted into a political programme. It is a battle over fundamental values and identities, fought through language, symbols and algorithms. Democracies do not necessarily collapse under tanks, but through the slow erosion of trust, via language that divides, platforms that monetise resentment and politics that feeds on a constant sense of threat.

This is the terrain André Wilkens has been mapping for years. As director of the European Cultural Foundation and one of the key voices behind the European Sentiment Compass, an annual pulse-check of Europe conducted in partnership with the European Council on Foreign Relations, Wilkens has consistently argued that Europe’s most dangerous vulnerabilities are not only military or economic. They are cultural. Who feels seen, who feels excluded, and what happens when concepts are hollowed out or forcibly redefined.

Brussels has recently placed culture back on the strategic map with the publication of the European Cultural Compass, a framework that treats culture not as decoration, but as strategic infrastructure, essential for Europe’s ability to withstand geopolitical pressure, inequality, technological disruption and their psychological consequences. Culture, in this sense, becomes democratic resilience.

In his conversation with Telegram, Wilkens is direct about what is at stake. If cultural wars are indeed being waged against Europe, from both outside and within, the question is whether the continent is ready to act as a political community: to invest in spaces where people meet, learn and argue, to confront the power of platforms that shape our perception of reality, and, above all, to find a language capable of competing with fear.

This year’s EU Sentiment Compass that you put out together with ECFR, argues that Europe must not cave in to Trump’s culture war. But, since 2016. and Brexit, it seems that the nature of our politics and the “codes” changed in our politics. When did this start?

Good question. When did it start? Yes, you can say 2016 was the year which Trump won, and Brexit happened, but also there was rise of Le Pen and AfD in Germany, and Meloni and Wilders. I wrote an article in 2018 called The Battle for Europe, where I said: we are in a battle for Europe, and the battlefield is internal and external. On the external side you have Putin, Trump, who want to destroy the European Union as it is. And inside you have Orbán, at the time Kaczyński, and others who want to do the same. In 2018 I thought the Europeans don’t realize what’s going on, or pretend nothing is happening. Because if you are actually in a battle, or if you are in a war, let’s say, you actually do something. You buy equipment, sandbags, a rifle, a drone… you do something. You’re not just pretending business as usual. And we haven’t done any of this stuff. We pretended that nothing is happening and that things will just return to how it was before. And that was a mistake. Hopefully we’re in a wake-up moment.

Everything is weaponized, and that so-called culture war became the one hardest to win. Can we have a common “weapon” in Europe that will defend our values, especially now, in times of sovereignism and nationalistic renaissance? Is there a European culture to fight this war externally? And what can be the tools within our societies if we don’t agree anymore on the meaning of terms?

Let’s talk about means and tools, not weapons. How do you fight a war? Or how do you fight a culture war? I think there are many things, but let’s open the big picture. In a way, we had a relatively good ride for at least 65 years, as the European project. It started small with six countries, then enlarging, from coal and steel, agriculture, then more. People didn’t really question it on the way, apart from the military: in the beginning it was also supposed to be a defence union, and then the French vetoed it.

But it continued. More and more members joined, the southern enlargement, the northern, the eastern. It was a real success story. Then you had a backlash with Brexit, but also with geopolitical changes: the rise of China, the resurgence of Russian imperialism, and a dramatic change in the US. All this coming together challenged the European trajectory as it was, a success story, even economically. So you have a challenge to the way Europe developed, and people are exploiting it. When we look at these guys,Putin, Trump and internally, the European Union as such, as a collective system of managing interests in a peaceful and productive way, is challenging their beliefs of national sovereignty and power politics. So for them, the EU is a systemic threat because it’s the total opposite of how they see the world. For them there must be losers, and the EU cannot do any better.

Now, to go back: the culture war and how to fight it. They have been using many things, from economics, like in the trade war; Putin has used military threats, and oil and gas as an economic weapon. But they also used soft power, primarily transported through digital media. It wasn’t really through traditional media because they were more or less captured by the liberal, pro-European, pro-democratic system. So they had to look for something else, and they captured the digital space in a very clever way. That has become a real venue for the culture war. People didn’t understand what was going on, especially with social media and only later saw that tech is not non-ideological.

You argue that mainstream European political leaders should own Europe’s story and stand up more clearly in today’s culture war. Who are these people? What is the story of Europe in 2025.?

To give it a slightly more positive note: there are some political stories. Recent elections in the Netherlands, after two years of government dominated by the far right, gave us the biggest pro-liberal, pro-European party. Its leader Rob Jetten didn’t shy away from saying what he is about, and he made concrete proposals, saying “we will solve the housing problem not by kicking out migrants because they occupy the flats,” which is what Wilders asked, but by saying: “We will build new houses, and we will build new cities.” And he had a pro-European, a pro “let’s do” message. Everyone should be looking at this and say: in a country where the anti-Islam movement started in Europe 20 years ago, you can win with such a campaign. But you also have to have the right leader, a charismatic person not too entangled with the baggage of the past. We saw it also in New York, that it can be done. It’s possible. But you have to be credible and authentic, and not change every few months according to the polls.

In last year’s Sentiment Compass you wrote that the EU has huge blind spots that risk turning the continent into a xenophobic drift. Those blind spots include Europe being too white, too Western and “too boomer”. Why didn’t we succeed to tackle that? People usuallu don’t look at this broad picture of culture of our societies. Politics of culture. From your experience, knowing how Europe’s cultural map looks, what are the good examples out there? You once said: “It’s the culture, stupid.”

There are many things. Just a few weeks ago, in Amsterdam, we had a meeting of mayors for culture from all over the world, it’s called the Cities of Culture Summit. People discussed what to do in these times, because at the local level it has to be tangible, you’re close to the people. In a town you still know the people in the town hall. One of my favourite topics is libraries, because I believe libraries are one of the most essential public cultural infrastructures. There are 67,000 public libraries in Europe. You can still get a book out, but it’s not the main business anymore. They’re public spaces for meetings and all kinds of things. We have other things. It might not be everyone’s flavour, but if you go to the some important cultural events, like Venice Biennale and see what’s happening, people are thinking ahead and looking at the blind spots. When Trump says diversity is a bad word, in Venice they challenge it and make it all about diversity. Our architects think of the ways to make green transformation. We have a culture of solidarity fund where people are doing amazing things with little money all over Europe. And if you look at Ukraine: they’re fighting a war and still investing in functioning cultural infrastructure. There are lots of examples. But we still have the impression it’s not enough—and it’s probably not enough. Because even if something simply functions, you don’t realize it; you only realize it when it’s not there anymore. When your local library closes, you realize it was actually quite a good thing—or when a theatre doesn’t work, or schools don’t have a curriculum for culture and art anymore. Or in Ukraine, when theatres get bombed. Then it’s a wake-up call. I hope we can take action before things disappear.

Talking about investing in culture, there are negotiations going on about next European multiannual financial framework (budget), and under the programe Agora, culture, media and non-govermental sector should have more funds. You said we need to have at least 2% of the next EU budget for culture. Why is this important today, in the complex situation we’re in?

I’m quite positively surprised by what is happening, because in many countries, as we speak, even in places like Finland, the Netherlands, traditionally wealthy countries, funding for culture is capped, and so is cultural infrastructure. And of course there are other challenges, military infrastructure needs to be built up, digital infrastructure, and so on. In this context, the European Commission makes a proposal to double the investment in culture, in media, and in civil society, under one roof called Agora EU. Some people say, “Why put this together?” I think it’s a good thing. It will be a sizable budget, still not enough. We’re still not at 2% for culture. But we started at 0.2%, so we’re getting somewhere. If you look at the national level, it’s counter-cyclical that Europe is investing more. That’s also a message people need to hear. It’s not through yet, this is a proposal from the EU; it still needs approval and there will be heckling from the Parliament, but it’s a very important proposal for these times. People have understood.

There are many organisations, including ourselves, Culture Action Europe, Europa Nostra, others, who’ve advocated for a culture deal for Europe. And now we see it, to a certain extent, also in the Cultural Compass, which will come into effect from next year. It doesn’t only look at culture as one programme like Creative Europe, but also how it can be mainstreamed across different policy areas. That’s a good development. One can give credit where credit is due.

Talking about the Cultural Compass, just released by European Comission, there’s a sentence I find very important for our conversation: “Culture is a strategic resource for the EU to confront today’s pressing realities, such as geopolitical and geo-economic tensions, social and economic inequalities, rapid technological changes, demographic shifts, and mental health crises.” You mentioned this multi-level approach. Is there a definition of “European culture,” in regard to geopolitics today, especially if others are waging culture war?

There is the famous EU phrase: “United in diversity.” It makes sense. We have our different cultures, histories, ways of life. They are close to each other, but also very different. Let’s not forget, Europe used to be the battle field of the world. Whenever there was a war, it usually happened in Europe. So there’s a lot of competition and struggle between us. I hope we never come back to it, but we managed. And I would say that part of our European culture is to find a collective approach to things. And since we’ve had that, we have lived quite peacefully and productively with each other. It’s not always easy—it’s a bit like a family: young people, older people, crazy people… but it’s a family. That’s how I see Europe and its cultures. Not as: “Let’s put it all in a pot and stir it and then we have one common culture.” That’s not the outcome. We should invest in our different histories and cultures, but they are closer than we think. Even the bad parts are part of it, as reminders of where we don’t want to go back to.European Union is also work in progress.

Big tech and social media are changing our culture and amplifying anxiety about what we are. It’s a zeitgeist today—we’re more anxious than ever. How difficult is it now to change the damage done over the last decade on our minds?

It’s difficult, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be addressed. Looking at the whole world, this has had a huge impact, amplifying initially niche things like the Brexiteers or suddenly someone coming from nowhere winning an election in Romania. But also the constant damage, especially to children and young people, in terms of “Who am I?” and “Who should I be?” Constant comparing and competition. We don’t know yet.

Ten years ago, I wrote a book called Analog is the New Organic. It’s not anti-digital; it’s saying: simply because we can do everything digital doesn’t mean we have to. After 100–150 years, we know the side effect of industrialisation was CO₂, which changed our environment and is now a real problem for humankind. Industrialisation was a huge driver of modernity and got people out of poverty, but the real side effect was CO₂. I asked myself: when looking back at digitalisation, what will have been the real side effect? I wrote: maybe it’s our minds. So our messed-up minds are, in a way, the CO₂ of digitalisation.

But there’s no reason to give up. This year the European Cultural Foundation supported the Public Spaces conference about the Fediverse: the federated universe, open source technologies. Not closed big tech like in the US and China, but federated open source platforms that don’t belong to anyone, with open algorithms not trained to maximise profit. There is an alternative.

But still, it’s not addictive as the big tech we’re all hooked on…

Yes. I always thought Europeans need to get together and create a digital Airbus. We created Airbus and now it’s a global player. But it needed to be created collectively, as a public-private venture with five countries at the time.

It’s the end of the year. What’s your recommendation to Europeans to read or watch?

There’s one book I read recently. It’s maybe not easy reading, but it is a good read to understand the world we are in and draw conclusions: Giuliano da Empoli, The Time of the Predators. It deals with the merger of big tech and political power. It’s often scary, but you need to understand what you’re up against. What’s on my table to read over the Christmas holidays is Margaret Atwood. She wrote a kind of biography. She’s seen many things much earlier than all of us, and I’m looking forward, in a fictional way, to understand from her. Over the next few weeks, it’s also time to get out of the news rat race. Make up your own mind where you want to go, where we want to go. Actually, in Europe we have a great place in which we live. There are many problems to solve, including housing and inequalities. But I certainly don’t want to spend my time now in the US or in China or Russia. So let’s make the most of what we have.