CEU 16

Pwyllgor Diwylliant, Cyfathrebu, y Gymraeg, Chwaraeon, a Chysylltiadau Rhyngwladol | Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee

Diwylliant a'r berthynas newydd â'r UE | Culture and the new relationship with the EU

The Committee is considering the impact of the UK’s exit from the EU on the culture sector and would like to understand your views on the following:

 

 

 

ECTARC has been an international cultural and training organisation based in Llangollen for over 30 years. As a community based, cultural organisation,in more recent years the majority of its work has been to facilitate exchange programmes for young people coming into Wales, previously through the Leonardo exchange programme and more recently through Erasmus. For a period of 6 years ECTARC successfully worked with the Welsh government to provide in total 600 places for young people in Wales to experience an international language training and work placement programme recruited from the community. For both inward and outward programmes the largest number of placements were in cultural institutions. At the time of the change in European programmes moving from the Leonardo programme to the Erasmus programme ECTARC’s turnover was over a million pound, with the majority entering into the local economy. The more recent demise of ECTARC has been a result of two factors, Brexit being one of them. The change in European programmes reduced the income available for managing programmes but ECTARC was exploring alternative European programmes with partners. When Brexit arrived this compounded the challenges with increased paperwork and the additional costs of visas. ECTARC saw long standing partners of over 20 years from all over Europe withdraw from Wales with many partners taking their business to Ireland. ECTARC experienced a complete collapse of the business where a one million turnover reduced to nil.