The relationship of European civilisation to democracy and culture is deeply complex and intellectually challenging. Cultural creation and production only mix with politics in a lopsided manner. The cultural dimension, however, is a fundamental tenet of the European Union (EU) and an indispensable foundation for strengthening its institutions and the performance and achievement of all European realities. A number of initiatives have been taken to allow the cultural dimension to support the European project. We examine here the status of one important part of European contemporary culture: the creation of audio-visual content, specifically how it is shaped by European civilisation and reciprocally shapes it. While total investments in original European content sharply increased with the entry of global streamers on the European market, these investments came as a net addition. The EU is succeeding in having ‘internationals’ play by the rules in European creation. While they bring productions from around the world to European viewers, they also expand the viewership for European productions far beyond Europe itself. This has generated welcome opportunities for local job creation and audio-visual development.