The 2018 Budget for Culture: Preserving the Status Quo in the Sector
Automatically translated summary. The full text is available in Romanian.
The Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup” has analysed the provisions of the 2018 National Public Budget for culture in the Republic of Moldova, assessing whether they match the priorities set in earlier cultural policy documents and in the 2016-2018 Government Programme.
The analysis finds that the 2018 budget keeps the policies of recent years, aimed mainly at safeguarding cultural heritage and sustaining existing institutions rather than developing the sector or raising its economic weight. Culture spending rises nominally but falls as a share of state budget expenditure, contrary to Eastern Partnership trends, where Belarus has the highest share at 2.0%.
State institutions are supported regardless of efficiency: theatres, the circus and concert organisations receive MDL 4.5 million more (MDL 126.5 million in total), while their revenues are set to fall by MDL 1.9 million, to 87.7% of the 2017 level. The MDL 3.0 million increase for NGO projects is welcome, but funding priorities and simpler access are needed. The sizeable increase for cinematography can only pay off if a national market for films exists, which it currently does not.
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