Compiling cultural statistics for different countries on a comparable basis sounds like a contradiction: how can the cultures of one country be harmonised with those of another? The key is to identify why the comparison needs to be made. In this chapter, therefore, current developments in European cultural statistics are reviewed by first exploring the needs for pan‐European cultural statistics that flow from policy.

The chapter describes and reviews a European Union project to develop cultural statistics that reported at the end of 1999. The results of this project have been taken into the European statistical system. Hardly any statistical results have yet been published. The chapter questions how far this work will progress beyond the UNESCO framework for cultural statistics. One significant issue is that the UNESCO framework, compiled some 15 years ago, gave relatively little attention to the creative industries. These industries now feature more strongly in policy responses to the wider economic and social challenges facing European countries and the European Union. The new work on cultural statistics gives some recognition to the creative industries but it does not embrace the full extent of the creative industries as defined in the UK.