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EU: Sweden assumes the EU's six-month rotating presidency from the Czech Republic on 1 July

Poland: Poland will present an updated adoption timetable for adopting the European single currency by early August, a deputy finance minister said on Wednesday (24 June) amid growing expectations that the 2012 target date for euro entry will be pushed back.

Europe: Launched at the occasion of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, the FestLab for Creativity and Innovation - initiated by the European Festivals Association - is established to spotlight the excellence of festivals in the creative and societal process and to give incentives to successfully fulfill the festivals’ core mission which still is the artistic one. The FestFlash on Creativity and Innovation follows the mission of the FestLab. The second edition of the FestFlash stresses the innovative potential of festivals in the Baltic and in the Black Sea regions.

Interarts, alongside the other pilot CMCPs participating in the project, will provide some information regarding Spain and will become fully operational by November 2009. CMCPs are conceived as first entry points for mobile cultural workers and offer advice and administrative support regarding the mobility of artists and other cultural professionals. Support is also being provided by other centres in Belgium, the Netherlands and Wales. PRACTICS is a 3-year project supported by the European Commission and started in December 2008.

EU: The European Commission launched a communication campaign to diffuse “Spread the Sign”, a visual dictionary for sign language. This dictionary is web-based and allows watching the sign language for specific words in small films. 11 languages are presently available: English, Swedish, French, German, Spanish, Finnish, Czech Lithuanian, Portuguese, Turkish, and Russian. With the help of this translation tool, sign language is accessible to everyone across Europe and the world. Its primary aim is to improve the vocational pupil's language skills when going abroad for work practice, but it also includes many words of daily language and will continue to be enlarged both in terms of entries as of ranges of languages. The project started as a pilot project in Leonardo da Vinci 2005 and is presently continued under the Lifelong Learning programme. It is a completely new initiative which is planned to be further deepened and expanded.

EU: The EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture went to the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet, Oslo.

Europe: A group of 45 participants from all over the world is invited to take part in this intense course from 23 October to 30 October 2011. The Atelier is especially designed for those who are working or have ambitions to become involved in programming or in programming-related departments within a festival. Participants develop exciting new ideas under the professional and extremely generous guidance of renowned festival managers coming from all over the world to share their rich experience.

EU: The seven Grand Prize winners of the 2009 European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Awards were announced today. An additional 21 Awards were also granted during the official European Heritage Awards Ceremony in the Teatro Antico in Taormina, Sicily (Italy). The Grand Prizes, each worth €10,000, went to projects in Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

UK: Ben Bradshaw is now the new secretary of state for culture, media and sport – the third in two years.

EU: The European Commission has decided today to propose that 2011 be designated as the "European Year of Volunteering". The Council and the European Parliament are expected to endorse this proposal by the beginning of next year.

Poland: The genius who drank to be able to write, and wrote to be able to drink, Joseph Roth: The Legend of the Holy Drinker, has returned to his rightful place in the literary pantheon.

Montenegro: War and demise of federal state failed, financial crisis succeeds in killing summer festival.

Hungary: Lost Persons Area, a Belgian-Dutch-Hungarian co-production, has won the prize for best screenplay at the Semaine International de la Critique in Cannes.  It invites seven feature films and seven shorts to participate at the same time as the Cannes Film Festival, seeking to discover new talent.

Czech Republic: From radio headquarters into a museum outlet – the next stage in a row of incarnations in the Czech Republic.

Latvia: A study on culture consumption and participation patterns in 2008 was commissioned by the Culture Capital Foundation and carried out by the Laboratory of Analytic and Strategic Studies (2009). This year the focus was laid on accessibility of culture.

Europe: The 7th Annual European Heritage Awards Ceremony will take place in the Teatro Antico of Taormina, Sicily on the 5 June 2009. Among the 28 selected winners of the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards, seven Grand Prize winners will be chosen as the most outstanding examples of heritage protection, which will be announced at the awards ceremony.