FYR of Macedonia/ 6. Financing of culture  

6.1 Short overview

The Ministry of Culture is responsible for distributing public funds for culture on the basis of an annual plan, which is developed by the Ministry at the end of the year for the following year. The allocation of the overall state budget to different sectors is prescribed by law (annual Law on the National Budget). Culture's share of the state budget in 2002 to 2006 ranged from 2.40% to 1.80%. In 2005, culture's share of the state budget was 2.227%.

The Ministry of Culture is the main source of funding for culture. It provides annual funding to the national cultural institutions (salaries, investments, running costs such as heating, insurance of equipment, buildings, exhibits, etc.) and to specific programmes that distribute funds on the basis of competition. The amount of money reserved to pay the salaries of those employed on a full time basis in cultural institutions represented a share of 62% of the total budget for culture in 1992. This figure decreased to 59% in 1995, 39% in 2000 and 35% in 2002 and 45.12% in 2005.

In December 2003, the government passed the Decision on the Network of National Institutions in the Field of Culture. According to this Decision only 51 (from the previous 115) institutions gained the status of national institutions that are completely financed by the Ministry of Culture. All other cultural institutions are considered local and should be financed by the local governments (salaries, running costs etc.). The local institutions can apply for annual funding from the Ministry of Culture for programmes and specific projects. Since June 2005, this has been put into practice.

In 2005, the structure of the cultural budget was: 45.12% for salaries; 2.65% for heating; 0.99% for insurance and other services to the institutions; 2.65% for capital investments (reconstructions, equipment etc.) and 44.24 % for programmes and projects.

Table 14:   National cultural budget, in MKD, 1995 - 2011*

Source:     Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia.

The proposed budget for 2012 was 365 253 000 MKD (5 987 754 EUR) for the Ministry of culture, and 3 316 366 000 MKD (54 366 665 EUR) for financing cultural activities.

Such significant disproportions in the Ministry's budget between 2006-07 and 2010-11 is mostly related to the scheduled activities that were "imposed" on the Ministry of Culture, like the "Skopje 2014" project, the building of numerous memorial monuments, publishing projects,  temporary archaeological campaigns etc. In practice, very little funds were left for regular cultural activities.

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