Germany Continues to Lead the Way in Culture Aid, Doling Out Another €1 Billion to the Sector and Lowering the Tax Rate on Art

Germany has released a new bailout package of €130 billion,
including €1 billion set aside for the culture industry.

The funds, which will be made available this year and next
year, will be widely distributed across cinemas, music clubs,
memorials, museums, theaters, and festivals. €250 million will
go to help cultural institutions reopen with new hygiene protocols,
such as updated ventilation systems and new socially-distanced
visitation arrangements. Some €30 million has been earmarked
for galleries, cultural centers, and publishing. The package,
called New Start, also decreases the tax rate on art by 3
percent.

“[W]e are supporting the new start of cultural life in Germany
and setting the course for the future,” said culture minister
Monika Grütters in a statement today. “For
us, the preservation and safeguarding of Germany’s cultural
infrastructure is the key to creating work opportunities for
artists and creative people throughout the country again.”

The largest portion of the funds, €450 million, will
primarily benefit facilities that are not already supported by
public funding, which would include independently-owned businesses
and privately-funded arts organizations. The press release
states that it also aims to get creatives back to work, especially
employees who have been temporarily furloughed.

The tax rate on art is also being lowered from 19 percent to 16
percent. The Federal Association of Art Dealers in Germany had been
asking the government to reduce the tax rate to its previous rate
of 7 percent. Artnet News reached out to the association for
comment but did not immediately hear back.

However, the Association of Visual Artists in Berlin says the
aid does not go far enough, particularly in its support for
freelancers. “Freelance artists, like all other solo
freelancers affected by the corona crisis, are neither supported,
for example through order or purchase programs, nor receive
bridging grants, which the economic stimulus package naturally
provides for other sectors,” organization said in a
statement. They note that the new round of cultural support
totals just .7 percent of the total €130 billion and that it will
need to be divided up across Germany’s 16 states.

The association is calling for a “New Deal” for art,
including large-scale acquisitions and commissioning
programs. “The lion’s share of the costs resulting from the
pandemic in the cultural sector will be left to the federal states
alone—which will then lack these funds elsewhere. And the economic
stimulus package leaves the artists* and cultural workers alone all
the more,” the statement says.

Olaf Zimmermann, managing director of the German Cultural
Council, has pushed back on the criticism: “Culture has simply not
been forgotten, as has been claimed time and again in recent weeks,
but is an important part of the federal government’s economic
stimulus program.”

The post Germany Continues to Lead the Way in Culture Aid,
Doling Out Another €1 Billion to the Sector and Lowering the Tax
Rate on Art appeared first on artnet News.