Hungary/ 5.2 Legislation on culture  

In Hungary, there is no comprehensive law on culture or art. Act CXL/1997 is often referred to as the Law on Culture, but in fact it regulates three sub-sectors only: libraries, museums and local socio-cultural activities. The annually renewed Acts on the budget, on taxation and on regulating the competency of local governments have a pivotal role to play. The Acts on Public Finance and Public Servants pertain to the operation (creation and winding up) of publicly owned cultural institutions.

The Act on Companies also plays an increasingly important role. After the regime change in the early 1990s, the category of "public benefit company" or "kht" was created, and a considerable number of cultural institutions transformed themselves into such "businesses"; most of newly founded cultural institutions choose this status. The revised Act on Companies, Act IV/2006, however, stipulated that by mid-2009 all kht's had to be transformed into one or other form of non-profit company (mostly Kft), which are only distinguished from other business companies by the ban on paying dividends. Non-profit companies must individually apply to the registry court for the status of Public Benefit Organisation (see chapter 5.1.5), while kft's with non-profit declaration in the founding document automatically enjoy that status.

Similarly, public foundations are also a recent formation, the operation of which is basically regulated by the Civil Code.

Act XXIII/1993 created the National Cultural Fund that operates under the supervision of the minister in charge of culture. The Fund does project funding, but it does not give support to investments and operations: from project grants a mere 5% can be spent on operational overheads. Natural and legal entities as well as business organisations without incorporation may apply. The original Law stipulated a cultural contribution of usually 1% to be paid on certain cultural goods and services (of which advertisements were the most important source). Since 2010, 90% of the revenues from the most popular weekly lottery game replaced the levy. Each year, between HUF 7-8 000 million are collected. A quarter is reserved for the discretion of the minister, the rest is spent according to the guidelines of the main board. The number of area boards that administer the grants was reduced to nine from 2012:

• performing arts;
• architecture and heritage protection;
• periodicals;
• book publishing;
• public collections;
• socio-cultural activities and folkart;
• cultural festivals;
• literature and popular non-fiction; and
• visual arts.

The Minister appoints the Chairman of the National Cultural Fund Committee. The Minister kept the title of Chairman for himself with the modification of the Law in the summer of 2012, and the position of Vice-Chairman was created for the State Secretary for Culture, who is the de facto chief executive of the Fund.

The eleven member Committee is appointed for a term of four years. The members in the nine area boards are also appointed for four years, half of them upon the recommendations of professional organisations, the other half selected by the Minister. The Directorate of the National Cultural Fund helps in the administrative work of the Fund with a staff of 60 persons.

In 2011, 11 137 applications were processed, and HUF 7.14 billion (ca. 25 million EUR) was distributed between 6 167 grantees, averaging HUF 1.16 million (ca. 4 000 EUR). Applicants without Hungarian citizenship need an assistant executive, being a legal entity registered in Hungary.

Table 6:     List of the existing cultural legislation

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