The Forum kicked off with a welcome speech by Ján Figel (commissionner responsible for education, training, culture and youth). He stressed out that the essential values discussed in the forum were reflected and embedded in each other - for instance, creativity is always reflected in and by diversity. Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, Swedish minister of Culture, also reminded the audience that one of the focus points of the Swedish presidency is to strengthen the link between education/schools and cultural operators/artists, in order for children to be able to develop their creative abilities in their younger years. The relevance and importance of this topic in the cultural policy landscape was demonstrated by the success of the event "Promoting a creative generation", organised in July 2009 in Göteborg.

As deemed by the speakers, the European Culture Forum is first of all a milestone to take stock of the implementations of the European Agenda for Culture, but also an opportunity for decision makers, civil society stakeholders and cultural practicioners at large to meet and nurture their discussions.