Germany/ 6.2 Public cultural expenditure  

6.2.1 Aggregated indicators

Due to the various definitions of "culture", the available statistics differ widely. In the interest of presenting the most comprehensive picture possible, two sets of statistics are given here:

• the first set of statistics – see Table 1 – are taken from the statistical survey "Zur Lage der öffentlichen Kulturfinanzierung in Deutschland" (The State of Public Financing of Culture in Germany) conducted by Michael Söndermann and published in the Jahrbuch für Kulturpolitik 2000, 2002/03, 2006 and 2008 (Cultural Policy Yearbook 2000 – 2008), which used figures adjusted to reflect revenues and the flow of payments between the various policy levels; and
• a second set – see Table 2 – is provided from the Kulturfinanzbericht 2003, 2006 and 2008 (Cultural Finance Report 2003, 2006, 2008, 2010) published by the Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the Länder.

According to the survey conducted by Michael Söndermann, public cultural expenditure increased by 7.3 % between 1995 and the year 2003, overall from 7.65 billion EUR to 8.31 billion EUR and per capita from 95 EUR to 99 EUR. During the same period, the general price index rose by about 8 %. The percentage of overall public expenditure (all public budgets) attributable to cultural expenditure thus declined from 1.3 % to 1.3 %. (2002) According to this methodology, public cultural expenditure has decreased from 8.56 billion EUR in 2000 to 8.0 billion EUR in 2004. Between 2003 and 2007, public expenditures on culture fell back significantly from time to time. However, in 2007, it was once again (an estimated) 8.322 billion EUR; i.e., 101 EUR per person.

According to the Kulturfinanzbericht 2003, 2006, 2008 and 2010 (Cultural Finance Report 2003, 2006, 2008 and 2010) published by the Federal Statistical Office, public cultural expenditure increased from 7.47 billion EUR (1995) to 8.5 billion EUR (2007), 8.7 billion EUR (2008), 9.2 billion EUR (2009) and a provisional 9.6 billion EUR (2010), and per capita from 91.1 EUR to 102.83 (2007) to 116.95 EUR (provisional in 2010). The percentage share of public expenditure (all public budgets) attributable to cultural expenditure in the gross domestic product thus decreased slightly from 0.40 to 0.35% in 2007 to 0.38% provisionally in 2010.

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