A brand-new Basic Infrastructure for the arts sector had been put in place, since 2009, which actually should have been evaluated now. It would then have become clear that the revolutionary and highly controversial intervention instituted by Ronald Plasterk, minister of culture under the previous cabinet, had been very successful: attendance figures to art had grown, institutions were operating much more entrepreneurially, outreach and education objectives were clear and everyone would have known where they stood.
As is well known, Halbe Zijlstra, appointed as change manager by the Rutte cabinet to put an end to leftist hobbies like arts innovation and research and more generally: subsidies for the arts, did not wait for the evaluation of that just-introduced Basic Infrastructure. The cabinet decided to cut 200 million, scrapping VAT benefits for art, while retaining those for sports and entertainment, abolishing the favourable and very lucrative WWIK scheme for the coffers and consigning the equally successful culture card for young people to the bin.
Balance: according to the ministry's own estimate, 3,000 of the 17,000 FTEs will disappear, amounting to at least 5,000 jobs, as most arts-related institutions working with part-timers, because of costs. How Zijlstra manages that, he explained on Pauw and Witteman: in Rotterdam and The Hague, for instance, two classical orchestras will be left, doing it together for half the price of a single orchestra. So that's fired orchestral musicians, cut freelance fees and a single hall rental. The advantage is gained on staff, who have nowhere else to work, as arts education institutions have also already been scrapped due to forced cuts at local and regional governments.
We have put online Zijlstra's debate with Ann Demeester, as held during the pauw and Witteman broadcast on 15 February 2012.
And then there is something else. We are currently researching the conditions in the eastern Netherlands, which Halbe Zijlstra is also so enthusiastic about. The Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, which does not want to collaborate with anyone at all except the Combattimento from Amsterdam, has dealt a blow to the Nationale Reisopera, travelling opera company that is the pride of the eastern Netherlands. The passage below from Zijlstra's request for advice to the Culture Council, seems to pave the way for it, because when it comes to relations between opera and orchestra, the Reisopera is completely dry, and NSO has all the trump cards. Albeit with a plan too idiotic for words.
And then, finally, the tragic situation for the Fine Art presentation institutions, of which Ann Demeester herself runs one (De Appel in Amsterdam) four may pass, but 14 applied. Again, many of these are innovative institutions, which will lose out in favour of heritage, the pet peeve of support partner PVV.
More on the disaster in the performing arts will follow later. Much more.
You can read the opinion request here:
Click to access bijlage-1-brief-met-adviesaanvraag-culturele-basisinfrastructuur-2013-2016.pdf
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