Petition Against Budget Cuts in Culture

At its session on 21st September 2015, the National Council for Culture discussed the announced cuts in the budget funding by the Ministry of Culture.

With regard to this, the members of the Council hereby determine the following:

1. In the past 20 years, the Slovene culture has been experiencing a systematic political devaluation. The Government is avoiding taking decisions on cultural policies by means of which it would provide a system environment for the production, distribution, and protection of cultural goods, and it is continually decreasing the percentage of budget funds earmarked for culture. In 1995, this percentage amounted to 2.5%, while in 2014 it was only 1.67%. As of 2009, the Government has been reducing the amount of budget funds for culture. These funds amounted to €204 million in 2009 and to €157 million this year, and additional decreases have been announced for 2016.

2. In the same period, the scope of activities carried out by institutions operating in the public interest in the field of culture, which has been set forth by law and their memorandums of association, has remained unchanged or has even increased. The Slovene cultural infrastructure that faced many problems in financially more favourable periods – from an unsuitable cultural model, systemic ambiguities, and insufficient assets to the unregulated status of the self-employed and the non-governmental sector – is now facing unavoidable devastation because the gap between the obligations that it is supposed to fulfil and the insufficient assets is widening and may no longer be bridged by means of internal reserves.

3. The same as many citizens of the Republic of Slovenia, the members of the National Council for Culture understand culture as one of the foundations of our existence and therefore vehemently condemn the political practice of its systematic disintegration.

We hereby appeal to Prime Minister, Dr. Miro Cerar, to stop the hostile anti-cultural politics that we have witnessed since 2010 and to manage culture on a Government level and give it the attention that the constitutive foundations of our country deserve. Any nation that loses its cultural sovereignty is bound to also lose its political sovereignty.

We hereby appeal to Minister of Finance, Dr. Dušan Mramor, to give culture some of the attention he has given to the consolidation of the banking system. It is intolerable that a country should protect the ones who benefited from financial machination at the price of destroying its own culture.

We hereby appeal to Minister of Culture, mag. Julijana Bizjak Mlakar, to protect the interests in the field of culture, and to immediately resign in the event that budget cuts do take place, thus showing her responsible attitude towards the Slovene culture.

We hereby invite the interested public to join our appeals because remaining silent will make it jointly responsible not only for the disintegration of the Slovene culture but also for the loss of cultural and political sovereignty without which the independent Slovenia is losing its fundamental meaning.

You can sign the petition here:
http://www.pravapeticija.com/poziv_k_podpisovanju_peticije_proti_rezom_v_kulturi

National Council for Culture of the Republic of Slovenia

Metod Pevec, Chairman
Dr. Andrej Blatnik, Member
Dr. Milena Mileva Blažić, Member
Dr. Sonja Ana Hoyer, Member
Uroš Lajovic, Member
Jadranka Plut, Member
Alja Predan, Member

Ljubljana, 22nd September 2015