Arts, culture need extra 30 million in spending

The cabinet must spend an extra 29.5 million euros on culture annually. The emergency aid of the Tropenmuseum (Tropical Museum) must be added to the budget for museums and extra money must be made available for an orchestra for light music, such as the Metropole Orchestra. This is according to the advice the Council for Culture sent to the government on Wednesday, Volkskrant reports. The Tropenmuseum threatened to collapse after the Royal Tropical Institute, of which the museum was part, lost its annual 20 million euros grant from the Ministry of Foreign affairs. The Tropenmuseum, which split off, then received temporary support from the Ministry of Culture. Thanks to a bailout by the Tweede Kamer, lower house of parliament, the Metropole Orchestra has public funding until 2017. According to the council, another part of the requested money should go to talent, which has been badly affected by the cutbacks on arts two years ago. Minister Jet Bussemaker has since made money available for this, but it will run out after 2016. The council thinks that this financial support should remain available. Money should also be available for dance and theater production companies, which lost their state funding 4 years ago. The council wants the government to provide funding for interdisciplinary working artists, a newly established knowledge center that collects better information on the cultural sector and give urban regions more say in cultural policy. Minister Bussemaker will soon make an outline for the cultural policy for the next funding period, from 2017 to 2020.