How money for culture is distributed

The tenders for the Ministry of Culture, the City Secretariat for Culture, and the Provincial Secretariat for Culture to participate in the financing of this year's projects in their respective fields have been completed. You have to believe that what little money they have will be fairly distributed.

The province has the highest budget

Yesterday, the first of March, the deadline for the last of the 25 tenders announced by the Ministry of Culture for the co-financing of this year's cultural projects expired. Only three more public calls remain open. Competitions for the Province and for Belgrade were completed last month.

The Ministry of Culture received 0,67% of the state budget this year, and 0,68% last year. Of that money, in 2024, 5,02% of the budget was set aside for competitions for contemporary creativity.

The budget of the Provincial Secretariat for Culture is much larger than the budget of the Ministry of Culture. In 2024, it amounted to approximately 5,29% of the total budget of AP Vojvodina.

The Secretariat for Culture of the City of Belgrade decided last year not to organize tenders for co-financing. It was the second such decision in the last five years.

The reasoning for 2020 was that due to the state of emergency, "there are no conditions for the competition to be implemented", while last year it was said 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 was not enough time left to conduct the competition regularly.

Previous experience shows that a part of this money, often with very large funds, is received by institutions whose primary activity is culture (eg educational and research institutions) and private companies that belong to the group of cultural industries.

From 2022 to 2024 alone, the Ministry of Culture, the Provincial Secretariat, the Secretariat of the City of Belgrade, and the Culture Authority of the City of Novi Sad supported 284 "dubious" projects, with a total value of approximately 2.783.500 euros.

Ministry of Culture of Serbia

According to the results of the ten-year research of the Association of the Independent Cultural Scene, led by Dr. Predrag Cvetičanin, on the spending of budget money for culture, the Ministry of Culture's 2023 competition for artistic dance, among others, supported the following projects: "International festival of playing (!) on traditional instruments" of the Center for Sustainable Development and Social Progress "Novi put" from Vrbas, which deals with activities to monitor and improve the state of social flows, encouraging and developing the entrepreneurial spirit young people.

Then there are several associations with different names, which deal with the same activity that has nothing to do with culture - "informal education, environmental protection, protection of ecological human rights and education...". These are: Citizens' Association "Factory of Knowledge and Conservation" Novi Sad, which received money for the project "Our wire is beating again", Citizens' Association "Ami" from Novi Sad, which was founded just before the announcement of the competition, on January 4, 2023, for the project "Traveling Note", and Citizens' Association "Time for Education" from Novi Sad, which was also founded on January 4, 2023.

Secretariat for Culture of Belgrade

The Secretariat for Culture of the City of Belgrade is leading the way in so-called dubious projects.

For example, in 2021, the largest funds in the amount of 3,25 million dinars were received by the "Citizens' Association Culture + Sport = Love", for four different areas. At the competition for musical art, their project "Festival Music Truck" was supported with one million dinars. In the competition for visual arts, the project "Stripostracija" was supported with 450 thousand dinars, the project "KratkoNET film" was supported with 900 thousand dinars for the film, and the project "The Connection of the Incompatible / Masked Ball" was supported with 900 thousand dinars for the artistic game.

According to the records of the Agency for Business Registers, already in 2021 (when they received these funds), as well as the following two, this Association submitted declarations of inactivity.

Photo: Luka Knežević Strika

Also, in the same year, two opera projects of the Center for Development, Education and Culture of the NIA were supported with 900 thousand dinars, "In honor of Puccini and Verdi" with 450 thousand dinars and "Belgrade Opera Days" with another 450 thousand dinars. According to the Center's website, the projects it was involved in until then were the Agricultural Incubator, the Path of the Young Entrepreneur, and Financial Literacy in the Function of Entrepreneurship Development.

In 2021, the "Network for Business Development" also dealt with the organization of opera events: the projects "Opera in new clothes" were supported with 400 thousand dinars and the project "Opera concert on the occasion of World Opera Day" with 600 thousand dinars. Other significant projects of this organization include the project "Empowering businessmen in rural areas for more efficient business management in Vrnjačka Banja, Trstenik, Kraljevo, Sjenica, Tutin and Novi Pazar".

To make the paradox complete, in the same year the "Chamber Orchestra of St. George's Strings" received 250.000 dinars for the entire concert season.

At the contest for an artistic dance (!) of the Secretariat for Culture of Belgrade in 2023, the project "Tavala za Avala" of the association "We united young people" was supported with 2,35 million dinars, which was registered for "emphasizing human rights and European values ​​(...) and connecting young people with different political options". In the same year, the "Monasteries of Belgrade" project was supported with 1,35 million dinars. The association "Youth Center for Sustainable Development - Knowledge is Power", whose headquarters are in Grocka, their representative is from Čačak, for 2021.

year they do not have a financial report, and in 2022 they submitted a declaration of inactivity.

Provincial Secretariat

The problems with the competition of the Provincial Secretariat for Culture, Public Information and Relations with Religious Communities are primarily reflected in the fact that for years funds from the provincial budget have been allocated to "non-residents" - organizations that are not registered in Vojvodina, nor do they implement projects in Vojvodina.

So, for example, in 2023, from the total budget of the Provincial Secretariat for Culture for projects in the field of film art in the amount of 60 million dinars, 39 million dinars were received by companies from Serbia itself - Zillion film, Gargantua films, Zero video material production from Belgrade and Tribal film from Arandjelovac.

And last year, out of the 65 million dinars earmarked for the film, 37,5 million dinars went to companies from Belgrade: Living Pictures, Gargantua films, Papa films, and Zillion film.

Both the Ministry and the Provincial and Belgrade Secretariats have been warned many times about these mistakes. Until now, they were not respected.