At the opening ceremony of the “European Year of Intercultural Dialogue,” for which Slovenia was responsible as it presides the EU in the first half of 2008, many words about the “great importance of culture” were said. It is a fact that not many representatives of Slovenian NGO cultural organizations were invited to the event or to the opening conference: “Intercultural Dialogue as the Fundamental Value of the EU”. And even if they had been invited, I am sure that they could hardly attend the event. The opening event was namely scheduled at the beginning of January 2008 when NGO cultural producers are extremely busy with fundraising. They have to carry out this demanding and time-consuming administrative work in order that the fundamental value of the EU – culture – is kept “alive”. The truth is that in Slovenia not as many funds are given to NGO cultural production as there are words spent. Or to put it differently, NGO cultural organizations face many obstacles on their way to improving their financial situations in order to realize their programmes. However, NGO cultural organizations are precisely those organizations that make an important contribution to this European cultural diversity. This difficulty is just as evident when it comes to raising European Union funds. The draft resolution on the National Programme for Culture 2008-2011 is willing to support cultural projects which are capable of raising these funds. Actually, these European Union funds are nowadays in Slovenia almost a figure of speech; that is why it is important to deconstruct this figure using a sort of “cultural materialism.” Cultural materialism seeks namely to explain the organizational aspects of politics and the economy.1 What follows is a report on how (European) cultural policy is “lived” on a daily basis by NGO cultural organizations in Slovenia, especially in relation to the possibility of co-financing their programmes with European funds.

In the first issue of Reartikulacija the proposed “resolution on the National Programme for Culture 2008-2011” was already critically examined, particularly its discourse and its chapters concerning the visual and performing arts. The resolution also discusses (though very briefly) under the title “Guidelines for Cultural Policies”, the great impact of culture on economic growth. In the past years, on the grounds of quantitative facts about the great impact of culture on economic growth and employment rates within the EU in the cultural sector as well as the social and political role of culture, numerous EU documents dealing with culture have been ratified. Therefore, culture is perceived as an important economic factor, which Slovenian cultural policies intend to stimulate in order to “enable growth of employment rates,” one of the reasons why the cultural sector is supposed to be so important. European funds are perceived as one of the methods of stimulating this sector. But if we focus on the work conditions in the cultural sector, which is an ever growing employment sector in Europe, in Slovenia this employment universe is far from the work model known as the “European social state legacy.” The beginning of each year is not only the time when cultural organizations are submitting their proposals for funding but it is also the time when they are reporting on their activities. Cultural organizations provide data in order that the structures which give them funds can decide which cultural programmes are successful and which are not. No doubt that self- and external evaluations are a very useful method for evaluating work and programmes. Such evaluations provide structural changes, which will stimulate a creative, safe and professional production environment that will enable high quality cultural programmes.2 However, a paradox is persistently reappearing, as it seems that although NGOs each year spend much time and effort reporting on their activities, they are not evaluated properly. Therefore, as reported in the research about the previous resolution on culture in Slovenia, the resolution on the National Programme for Culture 2004-2007 carried out by Maja Breznik and Aldo Milohnić (2007), the subsidizers in some instances failed to evaluate the programmes in relation to the directives of the 2004-2007 resolution, mostly due to lack of human resources (Breznik and Milohnić, 2007: 5, 10).

As far as NGO cultural organizations are concerned, if I may be cynical, it seems that human resources are less of a problem, mainly because it is an unwritten rule that if you are working in the NGO cultural sector, it should not be a problem for you to work for free. So we do project drafts in our “free time,” we fundraise in our “free time,” we do the reports in our “free time,” we organize events in our “free time,” artists present their work for “free” and co-organizers of our projects and programmes do it mostly in their “free time” and provide us with project space “for free.” 3 It seems that cultural producers still live in a world of moneyless exchange. Therefore the Slovenian cultural sector cannot contribute greatly to economic growth. Namely, without financial transactions there is no economic growth, for as we all know the growth of the GDP depends on what has been paid.

And what has this to do with EU funds? What does moneyless exchange or the grey economy have to do with EU funds? In order for cultural organizations to be able to take part in such projects, they need to prove a steady and relatively high turnover which should come from other sources – other public or private funding such as donors and sponsors. Therefore, only a steady and high turnover is seen as a guarantee for the successful realization of the project but, unfortunately, only a few Slovenian NGO cultural organizations are able to present such a turnover, which would qualify them to apply as the main organizers of EU funded projects. It seems that the problem of the grey economy in the Slovenian cultural sector could easily be solved by reciprocal charging of partners in cultural programs. However, as most cultural organizations depend on the same public subsidizers and are de facto receiving funds for the same shared programs, though for different costs within these programs, they cannot charge the services among them as this would mean they would charge for something for which they have already been paid by the public subsidizers of the event.

Let us illustrate this quandary. A cultural organization that is both the producer and the organizer of a cultural event does not run the premises in which this event could take place. (There are many NGO cultural organizations in Slovenia, which do not dispose of a proper venue.) So these organizations have to propose their events to some venues, which are again run by some other cultural organizations, but which depend on the same public subsidizers. In order that an organization running a venue can offer space to the organizer lacking a venue, the former needs funds to maintain the venue and the technical equipment, as well as human resources to run the place, etc. Funds which, as stated above, mainly come from the same public financers and are not supposed to be spent for commercial activities. Charging the space and the facilities would namely mean “double trading” the venue. Although it is important to state that the co-existence of subsidized organizations with and without venues is indeed a very helpful and important factor, which helps cultural organizations in Slovenia to organize their events at all. The problem we are faced with here is the vicious circle in which funds of one and the same subsidizer are circulating, or better, are not circulating enough due to the lack of funds. It seems that public subsidizers have realized the problem. Namely, they have just put into force a new rule: for one cultural programme only one NGO cultural organization can get public subsidizes. However, this does not mean that the organization would get more money for the programme – the sum it receives remains unchanged. If in the past collaborating organizations put their income together to produce a programme, now the programme should be produced by only one organization, which however disposes with the same income for the programme as before. Furthermore – some officials of the Slovenian Ministry of Culture even speak in favour of a kind of “takeover policy.” They imagine a far more effective strategy whereby “larger” organizations which have at their disposal venues or technical equipment would function as producers and apply for public funds, while smaller organizations would only “sell” their ideas … In this way – larger organizations would grow even larger and the small ones would get even smaller. No chance then for the small to take advantage of European funds. What we face in the cultural sector is a jumble of different logics: on the one hand the non-commercial logic of moneyless exchange and on the other hand the ever-growing need for cultural organizations to increase their turnover in order to be able to implement their activities. In order for the cultural policy to really stimulate the cultural sector in a way which would add to economic growth, there should be again: a) more public funds invested in cultural programs, so organizers could de facto pay for services they need from other cultural organizations; or b) more private funds for culture – the solutions which are complementary with the above mentioned ways of how to increase the turnover of cultural organizations. The first solution is only possible if a redistribution of public budget takes place; the second solution is only possible if the state is willing to change its fiscal policy and renounce some of the income that it now gets via taxes. Apart from the EU funds, considered as one of the methods of improving the miserable financing of culture, the resolution on the National Programme for Culture 2008-2011 also mentions “synergetic co-operation between the cultural sector, science and the economy.” Well, apparently there has already been a concrete proposal by the Slovenian Ministry of Culture on how to change the fiscal policy, as far as we could trust an unofficial source, but the proposal has not been approved by the Ministry of Finance. As long as tax reductions for donors to culture remain so small – in Slovenia only 3% of a company’s income could be set off against tax liability – it is unreasonable to expect that there will be any serious donations. In addition, it is impossible for a donor and an organization which receives the donation to conclude any agreement in what will effectively be the symbolic return of the donation by the supported organization.

On the grounds of the described situation where there are not enough state and local public funds meant for culture on the one hand, and taking into account the fact that we lack the appropriate fiscal policies, which would stimulate private donors and founders on the other hand, it is difficult to expect any great changes in the cultural sector in Slovenia, and therefore also any improvements in the precarious work conditions within it. In addition, a new law on taxing non-profit organizations, which are founded by public funds, has just been introduced; it orders that non-profit organizations have to pay additional tax on the public funds they gain for their activities. Instead of a concrete and functional policy which would introduce structural changes in the field of financing culture, Slovenia is again about to ratify another collection of pretentious words about how culture is the core of the national and European being and well-fare. Therefore, we are confronted with a situation where artists, producers and cultural organizations act as some kind of heroes and martyrs who as a rule fight under unenviable conditions for one of the fundamental EU values.4

Katja Kobolt, PhD, is a free-lance cultural producer and publicist from Ljubljana.

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