The City of Belgrade suspended all competitions for cultural projects

The Secretariat for Culture canceled everything competitions tendered for co-financing and financing of projects in culture for this year.

This decision was published on the Secretariat's website in the Useful Links section, which is not the usual place for this type of information. Maybe that's why it was only discovered a few days after it was made public.

The decision was made on April 23, after the expiration of the legal 60 days for the publication of the competition results.

Explanation

Here is how it is explained:

"The Secretariat for Culture, for objective reasons, was not able to publish the results of the public competition on the official website of the City of Belgrade no later than 60 days after the end of the submission of applications, because some members of the expert commissions trained to select projects in 2025 that will be financed or co-financed from the budget of the city of Belgrade in 2025 have resigned."

Otherwise, the resignation or replacement of commission members is a technical problem. A few years ago, this happened, for example, to the Commission of the Ministry of Culture, which decided on the purchase of books for libraries, so not all tenders announced for that year were cancelled.

Third time  

In the last five years, this is the third time that the City of Belgrade is saving on culture.

The first time in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when artists and cultural workers needed help the most because they were prevented from working due to the ban on public gatherings. The reasoning was that due to the state of emergency, "there are no conditions for the competition to be implemented", and the funds were diverted for salaries for 309 part-time associates of cultural institutions in Belgrade.

The second time, last year. The reasoning was that the City of Belgrade was temporarily financed for nine months due to the elections, and that after the adoption

of the city budget on July 1, 2024, there is not enough time left

to conduct the competition regularly.

This is the third time.

In the aforementioned Decision, nothing is written about the money that should have been allocated for this purpose, what will happen to it, and where it will be redirected.

The Ministry of Culture is waiting. The deadline for the results of the competition announced by the Ministry was at the beginning of April.