Deadline Date: March 18, 2026
The Council of Europe and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) have joined forces to create a new initiative aimed at supporting ambitious European drama series designed for international co‑production.
The focus areas of this initiative include promoting creativity, cultural diversity, and democratic values in the audiovisual sector, encouraging independent European storytelling, strengthening crossborder co‑production, fostering collaboration between producers and public service media, and supporting high-quality drama series with strong European and democratic relevance.
Building on a long-standing partnership that began with a memorandum of understanding in 2011, the two organizations formalized their cooperation through a new agreement, reaffirming commitments to democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, media pluralism, and cultural diversity. The initiative, previewed at the TV Drama Vision during the Gothenburg Film Festival in Sweden, aims to provide significant development support for European drama projects with international ambitions.
The European Series Development award offers €50,000 in development funding to help selected projects advance towards becoming European series co-productions. The jury has the discretion to award the full amount to a single project or split it between two projects. Successful applicants will enter into a grant award agreement with the Council of Europe, and the funding will be provided strictly as a development grant.
Eligible projects are limited to fiction drama series, with a required episode count between three and ten and a total running time of no more than 600 minutes. All genres are accepted as long as the target audience is 16 years and older. Applicants must be the initiating producers of their projects and operate production companies based in a Council of Europe member state, distinct from any media service provider.
The award will be implemented within the Council of Europe’s pilot programme for series co‑productions through Eurimages and will receive support from the EBU Drama Initiative and the EBU Fiction Expert Group. This initiative represents a significant opportunity for European creators to bring culturally diverse and socially relevant stories to international audiences while reinforcing collaboration across borders.
For more information, visit Council of Europe.
