Instead of being increased, the culture budget was reduced

On February 6, the Government of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Decision on the transfer of funds to the Current budget reserve for the year 2025, which deprived the Ministry of Culture of 371.575.000,00 dinars, without specific reasons for this and without explaining who the money was intended for.

All this is happening at the time of large protests by cultural workers who are demanding a budget increase to 1,5 percent at the national level and 6 percent at the local level.

Some new expenses and expenditures

At the aforementioned session of the Government, decisions were made to confiscate money from other ministries, institutions, local self-government and even from the President of the State, in the total value of 8.651.293.000 dinars "in order to secure the missing funds needed to finance expenditures and expenses that were not known in the process of passing the Law on the Budget of the Republic of Serbia for the year 2025".

This Decision dated February 6, 2025 was signed by Prime Minister Miloš Vučević.

Let us remind you that the Budget Law for this year was adopted at the end of November 2024, that is, only three months ago.

It is not clear which expenses and expenditures were not known then, and which made it necessary to take this much money now, why the Ministry of Finance, which creates the state budget, did not know about them, and to whom those 8,651.293.000 dinars are intended.

For example, from the 17 billion dinars allocated to the Ministry of Culture in November, 8 dinars will be taken away, so this year it will have less than 371.575.000,00% of what was originally allocated to it from the state budget.

The budget in culture has been reduced in almost all segments, with the most money allocated for improving the capacity of the cultural sector at the local level - 75.000,000 dinars, for the protection and presentation of the Manasija monastery - 56.450,000 dinars, and for publishing - 34 million dinars, then for research, protection and preservation of intangible and movable cultural heritage - 27.750 dinars, for film art - 000 million, and money provided for the work of representative associations in culture - 20 dinars.

Representative association of culture

Of all those on the list whose money was taken away by this Government Decision, only 20 representative associations in culture announced themselves.

34 dinars were allocated to them, and there are 2025 of them, in November by the Budget Law for 65.000.000,00. That sum, which is otherwise insufficient, was reduced by this Decision by 16.250.000,00 and now amounts to 48.750.000,00 dinars.

Duško Paunković, president of the Association of Literary Translators of Serbia, tells the "Vremena" portal that "the Government of Serbia is derogating from its Budget Law for the year 2025 with this Decision." What any of us can reasonably conclude is that no solution can override any law because laws are only repealed by passing new laws. The Budget Law cemented the budget until its rebalancing is adopted. All this indicates that the legal basis of the adopted Decision of February 6 should be examined."

He explains that the Ministry of Culture, which as part of the Government participated in the vote on the Decision, by agreeing to deduct four percent of the cultural sector from this year's budget, agreed that it was only breaking the law, and that it had put representative associations in a situation where they were breaking the law.

3000 ljudi

Namely, according to the Law on Ministries, the Ministry of Culture should take care of the development and promotion of culture and artistic creativity and, among other things, provide the material basis for activities in all areas of culture.

"On the other hand, representative associations are obliged by law to fulfill their obligations, which is why they were founded, and to perform all tasks related to the social status of around 3000 independent artists and experts in the culture of Serbia." If the previous amount, 65 million dinars, was too small, I do not understand how we can fulfill our legal obligation with 48.750.000,00 dinars. The question is whether the Ministry of Culture knows that the members of our associations create at least 60 percent of the entire cultural and artistic production in the country."

He notes that some items were not affected by these decisions: not a single dinar was taken for the maintenance of the palace in Dedinje, and the annual item for this is 77.000.000 dinars.

Also, this Government Decision does not envisage a reduction in the administrative costs of the Ministry of Culture itself, i.e. material costs, which include employee salaries, travel, awards, equipment renewal and more. "The only conclusion is that the smooth functioning of the Ministry is more important to the state than the culture itself," notes Paunković.

It is also strange why, of all the monasteries, only Manasija's budget was reduced. "Hilandar remained untouchable," he says. Let us remind you that recently this year's budget of this monastery was even increased by 11 percent compared to last year.

Redistribution

The only possible solution in this situation, says Paunković, is for the Ministry to redistribute the funds at its disposal. Experience shows that this will not happen, so the big question is whether Serbia will have culture this year.

Duško Paunković expects a reaction from other sectors as well, primarily from the Ministry of Health, whose Ministry has agreed that the Government of Serbia will reduce its budget for hospital equipment by 900 million dinars. and recommends that everyone review the Government Decision of February 6 in the "Official Gazette of Serbia".