We have another letter from the state secretary of Culture. Halbe Zijlstra has sent it to the Chamber to make it official that a very bleak wind is going to blow in arts land from 2013. This makes cuts of 200 million final, not counting the probably 150 million in so-called friction costs that the ministry also has to get from somewhere (you know: compensation claims, severance payments, accelerated depreciation of buildings, that sort of thing).
Finally: there is a little less left of the attack on left-wing hobbies than PVV ideologue and policy guru Martin Bosma had hoped, now that it is clear that Limburg retain an apparently right-wing opera for €1 million, albeit at the expense of apparently left-wing companies such as Orkater and Onafhankelijk Toneel. Furthermore, the PVV also wanted to keep a couple of symphony orchestras, turning music facilities in East, South and West from left-wing to right-wing hobby. The Hague's favourite 'trombone club', as the PVV used to call the Residentie orchestra, gets to sort it out with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Another one and a half million of the money that was meant for groups like Orkater and Onafhankelijk Toneel now goes to Friesland, which, in the eyes of the PVV, turned out to have a right-wing hobby after all, namely Frisian-language theatre.
Is there any positive news to read in this summer epistle from change manager Zijlstra? Yes: the large halls in the Netherlands are getting smaller. At least, you can now only speak of a large hall at 400 seats, whereas until now this was allowed at 350 seats. Furthermore, more than 50 artists are allowed to use postdoc positions, but for the same amount of money (2.5 million), and the existing art schools are not allowed to claim these positions.
In September, the many dozens of institutions that are not now included in the letter and its schedule will be told that they will therefore also be kicked out of the system. They may object to this, says the Stas. We are curious.
Will be hot autumn. We are going to follow that very closely.
offerbrief-subsidy-scheme-cultural-basic-infrastructure-2013-2016
completed matrix ministerial regulation 2013-2016
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français 
