Culture Minister Criticizes Underfunding of the Field

The Minister of Culture, Andras Istvan Demeter, expressed his dissatisfaction with the level of the budget allocated to culture, but also with the way in which public funds intended for this sector are distributed. The official stated that, for more than three decades, culture has been treated marginally in the state's budgetary architecture, although its contribution to the national economy is significant. The statements were made in the context of the minister's participation in the events organized on the occasion of Eminescu Days, a framework that Demeter considered appropriate to bring back into discussion the status of culture in public policies.

• "Culture has been sitting idle for 35 years”

In a critical speech on the way culture is financed, Andras Istvan Demeter stated that the current situation reflects an old structural problem, which goes back to both the post-December period and the communist regime.

"Culture has been sitting idle for 35 years. It is possible that it has been the same under socialism, because even then it was not a leader in financing. And that is a problem. Culture should not sit idle, picking up the crumbs from the table,” the minister declared.

According to him, the current approach, in which cultural institutions depend almost exclusively on insufficient budget allocations, keeps the field in an area of vulnerability and underdevelopment. Demeter stressed that a paradigm shift is needed, in which culture is viewed not as a consumer of resources, but as a real contributor to the national economy.

The minister argued that the solution is not just an arbitrary increase in budgets, but a rethinking of the way in which the contribution of culture to Romania's economic and social development is calculated and recognized. "Culture must have its share of the national economy, but for that we must see what its share is and how its share is calculated. It is not impossible to see,” said Andras Istvan Demeter. He advocated for cultural institutions to emerge from what he called the administrative "bubble” or "ghetto” in which they operate, insisting on the need to put "the entire contribution of culture on the table of the national economy.” In his opinion, only after this contribution is clearly quantified can we legitimately discuss a mechanism through which a share of the value created returns, in a predictable manner, to the cultural sector.

Present in Botoşani on the occasion of the Eminescu Days, the Minister of Culture participated in a round table organized at the Ipoteşti Memorial, with the theme "Cultural Education in the 2024 Cultural Consumption Barometer". The discussions focused on the role of cultural education in educating the public and increasing cultural consumption, in a context in which statistical data indicate major imbalances between access to culture and the level of funding. Andras Istvan Demeter also took part in a debate dedicated to cultural diplomacy, underlining the importance of promoting Romanian culture internationally as an instrument of image, dialogue and influence. The statements made by the Minister bring back to the forefront an old, but still unresolved debate, regarding the place of culture in the state's budgetary priorities and the need for a coherent public policy that would overcome the logic of chronic underfunding.