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Indien je een mens bent, laat dit veld leeg:.

btw

"1 billion loss? There are other figures." Halbe Zijlstra refers Berenschot report to trash.

by Wijbrand Schaap
23 September 201130 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

At the end of August came the figures. And what figures they were. Due to the stacking of extreme cuts by government, provinces and municipalities, the abolition of the successful Work and Income for Artists Act and the equally successful culture card, plus the VAT increase on the arts, the Netherlands' cultural sector would end up missing out on €1 billion in revenue. Berenschot had estimated that in...

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Budget note: We put together the cultural haircut percentages

by one of our members
16 September 201129 March 2022
7 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Image via Wikipedia Let's start again with yet another sloppiness of the Rutte government: that wretched VAT measure on the arts, which are the only ones to be bounced to the 'normal' rate of 19%. VVD doesn't like it, CDA isn't happy about it, but because tolerance specialist Martin Bosma once had to play a red mushroom in the school play...

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Rotterdam alderman shocks cultural sector over total lack of knowledge

by Wijbrand Schaap
29 August 201130 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

'And why do all these art institutions have to open on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and even Thursdays? I don't understand that. I'm far too busy working on those days.' Just a question during the Paradiso Debate, the annual closing event of Amsterdam's Uitmarkt. And normally, you can expect these kinds of questions from the audience after a couple of beers, but this question came from the Alderman of Culture of Rotterdam, a city of several hundred thousand inhabitants.

This...

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Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

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Rutte cabinet answers chamber questions on 'unsupported' VAT measure

by one of our members
22 August 201130 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

That will be fodder for chamber chapters-exegeten, although the question is whether it will make any difference. But Halbe Zijlstra says he did not say that the VAT measure "was not the most mature measure in the coalition agreement. Although that is what it said in that interview with him in NRC Handelsblad on 8 July 2011. At the time, everyone thought this was a funny knee-jerk reaction to reasonableness by the change manager Zijlstra, who usually operates rather harshly and without background knowledge. After all: even the youthful police spec...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

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Cultural policy Rutte cabinet advised against by patrons and entrepreneurs; PVV absent from hearing on future of Dutch culture

by Wijbrand Schaap
20 June 201130 March 2022
6 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

This is an infographic from a series made by Abel, Niels and Willem at Mediamatic. Based on an idea by Ruben Pater. Actually, there was only one compliment for the cabinet, which is in the process of cutting an average 30% from a sector that employs tens of thousands of Dutch people. During the hearing convened by the second chamber on Monday 20 June, the...

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Ministry of OCW cuts a little more of the truth than we already proved on Friday

by one of our members
22 May 201130 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Case in point: more people are against cuts than the ministry would have us believe. On page 32 of the now heavily controversial brochure 'Cultuur in Beeld', the ministry writes: "In the CDE, carried out at the end of 2010, citizens were asked to indicate from 17 policy fields whether they think the central government should spend (a lot) less or (a lot) more money on...

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Complaining Council for Culture backfires on Halbe Zijlstra

by Wijbrand Schaap
3 May 20118 July 2016
5 min read
ACTUAL

State Secretary Halbe Zijlstra does not like whining. Don't come to him with email bombardments, Twitter campaigns, angry letters and abusive language. He is not only insensitive to it, it even backfires on him. At least that is what he told

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Arts sector comes up with its own interpretation of culture cuts: more money to venues and assessment by 'professionals' on 'objective grounds'.

by Wijbrand Schaap
29 March 201130 March 2022
6 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Image via Wikipedia After the cry, now the official piece. With a fitting, tad Den Uyl/Van Agt-like title: 'Less where it can be done, better where it must be done.' But let's not laugh too hard. It is quite brave what they have done. Gitta Luyten, Marianne Versteegh, Joke Hubert, Henk Scholten, Siebe Weide and Ben Holvast, together as bosses of arts umbrellas and...

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Rutteleaks 3: we now know how barren it will look in the coming years: decimate culture and libraries, spare regional broadcasters

by one of our members
14 February 20118 July 2016
5 min read
ACTUAL

We had done the necessary research work ourselves, and then it turned out that something had also been sent to the House of Representatives, which contained many more figures. We asked for those figures and were shocked. After 2012, when the current arts plan expires and after a year of inaction and wait and see for the whole sector a...

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Call: It's not that bad everywhere, is it? We want hard figures culture budgets municipalities and provinces plz RT

by one of our members
3 February 20118 July 2016
2 min read
ACTUAL

If you work at a municipality or province and/or know the exact measures your government organisation will take in the coming years in the field of culture, we would like to have those figures. It may be anonymous, of course, if you don't want your exact cuts or investments to be out on the street, and it saves us a lot of wob...

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"The VVD always stands up for the arts" - Guest column by Jeffrey Meulman on Rutte's bold statements

by one of our members
30 January 201129 March 2022
6 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Jeffrey Meulman, director of The Dutch Theatre Festival TF, reacted to Rutte's statements in Buitenhof, which can also be seen on this site. He then received a letter back from the VVD. We didn't want to withhold that letter, and his response to it, from you.

Reality and politics are getting further and further apart. Last week, I visited three theatre performances in Baarn, Utrecht and Amsterdam. On stage a performance without subsidy, one with a bit of d...

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Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

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Column: "As soon as they start embracing art in the PVV, right-thinking people should start watching out."

by Wijbrand Schaap
20 December 20108 July 2016
5 min read
ACTUAL

The Hague is quite complicated for those who do not visit it on a daily basis. I was there last Monday, as a spectator at the discussion of the culture and media budget, and it has taken me until now to fully understand what is going on. For that understanding, being there live was essential. After all, to understand a social system like the Lower House, you not only have to listen to what is being said, and see who is speaking, much more important are the 'listening shots': the body language and actions of those who are not speaking.

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Arts budget debated in second chamber: hardly any discussion on 200 million cut to performing arts

by one of our members
14 December 201030 March 2022
14 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

We were at a debate day in The Hague that was as inconspicuous as it was historic on 13 December 2010: it was about the budget of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the (first?) Rutte government, and that was the budget in which, at the request of the supporting party PVV, the amount to be cut in the arts budget was set at 200 million, with heritage and museums having to...

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Culture Council threatens to pronounce 'unacceptable' on cabinet plans with arts and media

by Wijbrand Schaap
7 December 20108 July 2016
4 min read
ACTUAL

"It cannot be ruled out that previous choices made by the cabinet, such as on the VAT increase and the sharp cut in the Music Centre of the Netherlands Broadcasting Corporation, together with the announced cuts will cause irreparable damage to the cultural sector." Of course, even though Halbe Zijlstra has thankfully banned the term "Leftist Hobby" when it comes to culture, the distinguished gentlemen...

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VAT increase performing arts possibly postponed, if it is up to VVD's Upper House faction

by one of our members
3 December 20108 July 2016
2 min read
ACTUAL

The VVD group in the Senate is threatening to shelve the increase in VAT on performing arts tickets proposed by the CDA-VVD-PVV cabinet. The Nederlands Dagblad reports this today. According to Associated Press Service editor Laurens Kok, this is evident from the words of the VVD's group leader in that chamber, Fred de Graaf. We quote: Acting...

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Order of Tax Advisers severely criticises VAT increase for performing arts: 'theatres will be in exceptional position'

by Wijbrand Schaap
10 November 20108 July 2016
4 min read
ACTUAL

The Rutte government is defending the VAT increase on admission tickets to theatres and concerts, claiming that it will straighten out an exception for the arts. However, this does not appear to be true, according to a response from the Order of Tax Advisers to the proposal. "The Bar Association additionally points out that the explanatory memorandum notes that for the performing arts on...

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