Croatia/ 6.2 Public cultural expenditure  

6.2.2 Public cultural expenditure broken down by level of government

As can be seen from Table 2, the share of public cultural expenditure by level of government has not changed significantly since 2000. Since 1999, the share of expenditure of the Ministry of Culture has increased, with a fall in 2011. While the funding by municipalities stagnated, the allocation of the City of Zagreb increased until 2009 and fluctuated in the last two years, while the share by towns and counties dropped (see Table 2).

Table 2:     Public cultural expenditure by level of government, in %, 1999-2000 and 2009-2011

Source:    Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia.

Table 2 shows that the City of Zagreb plays an important role in financing culture in Croatia. Nevertheless, this funding has been decreasing in the last three years. The planned public expenditure of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports in the capital city of Zagreb for the year 2012 is 471 403 350 HRK (62 853 780 EUR), which is a further decrease of funding in 2010 of 537 000 000 HRK (approx. 73 561 643 EUR). This is more than a 12% decrease in funding for culture than in the year 2010. The funding is divided according to two main streams – the programme of public needs in culture (institutions) and the programme of independent productions (NGOs, associations and other institutions) (Source: City of Zagreb, 2009, 2010, 2012). The biggest cuts for 2012 were made in the programme of independent productions – the funding dropped from 88 075 000 HRK (2009) to 64 660 000 HRK (2010) to 55 524 100 HRK (financial plan for 2012), which resulted in continuous protests from the independent sector.

For a comparison, in the City of Split, the planned expenditure for culture in 2012 amounts to 79 952 100 HRK which is an increase in comparison to 2011 when it was 74 268 220 HRK. In the City of Rijeka, the third biggest city in Croatia, the planned cultural budget is 78 863 100 HRK that amounts to 9.45% of the proposed city budget for 2012 and shows a strategic orientation towards culture.

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