Bulgaria/ 6.2 Public cultural expenditure  

6.2.2 Public cultural expenditure broken down by level of government

Table 10:   Public cultural expenditure: by level of government, in BGN, 2009 (budget figures)

Source:      Ministry of Finance, National Budget Act; Ministry of Culture, Finance Department, 2009.
Note:         Figures presented in Table 10 include all expenditure of the Ministry of Culture (subsidy from the state budget plus income from own resources). On the local level expenditures are allocated to the municipalities.

Table 11:   Public cultural expenditure: by level of government, in '000 BGN, in %, 1998-2009 (budget figures)

Source:      Ministry of Finance, National Budget Act (adopted on an annual basis), 1998-2009.

As indicated in the Table above, the stable progress of decentralisation as a lasting trend occurs after 1998. In 2009, the proportion distributed between central and local level budgets was 39.80% at central level and 60.2% at municipal level. This is evidence of efforts by the executive power to implement real decentralisation in the cultural financing system after the stabilisation of the Bulgarian economy from 1997, when the Currency Board was implemented as an instrument for fiscal and economic stability. Although funding is nominally increasing, it still remains at a constant percent of GDP. After 1999, expenditure for culture per capita remained relatively stable.

Some of the local authorities started implementing local support schemes for cultural projects. In 2007 the Sofia City Hall attributed for the first time a grants programme for culture by attributing an amount exceeding the subsidy by the Ministry of Culture granted through the National Culture Fund for the year 2007.

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