Short overview
Cultural funding in the Federal Republic of Germany is based on several pillars. In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, culture – and thus also its public funding – is first and foremost a matter for the local communities. Only when a cultural policy task exceeds the municipal power in scope or matter does the state become active as a sponsor or promoter. Therefore, the municipalities bear the largest share of public cultural funding, followed by the Länder. The federal government has to bear only a smaller share due to its limited cultural policy competences (see chapter 4.1.2).
Until the turn of the millennium, different regional authorities worked with different definitions of the concept of culture (e.g. for scientific museums and libraries) and with different calculation methods (net or gross expenditure principle), which led to very different data on public cultural expenditure. A standardisation of cultural statistics was partially achieved in the preparation of the second culture financial report, the “Culture Finance Report 2003” (http://www.miz.org/downloads/dokumente/240/Kulturfinanzbericht_2003.pdf). For the first time, the Federal Government, the Länder and the municipalities agreed on a common concept of culture. In doing so, they orientated themselves on the definitions of EUROSTAT and UNESCO, in order to also internationally be able to guarantee comparability. According to this, the following fields are now counted among the culturally relevant areas of responsibility: Theatre and music preservation, scientific and other museums; scientific and other libraries/ archives; monument protection and preservation; other cultural preservation; cultural administration; art colleges as well as foreign cultural policy. Culture-related areas include radio and television broadcasting; adult education centres and other continuing education as well as church affairs. In addition, the basic funds concept was selected for the expenditure concept. The subsequent cultural finance reports – published every two years from 2006 onwards – have retained the concept of culture, the basic funds concept and the central questions.
The discussions about harmonising cultural statistics were also taken up by the Enquete Commission of the German Bundestag. In its final report, “Culture in Germany”, it submitted a proposal for the harmonisation of cultural statistics. In 2008, this proposal was discussed and at least partially introduced. Following the recommendation of the Enquete Commission, the Federal Government and the Länder commissioned the Federal Statistical Office in 2012 to develop uniform nationwide cultural statistics, the concept for which was drawn up between 2014 and 2016. The project was extended from 2017 to 2022 under the title “Nationwide Cultural Statistics”. The goals of the first project phase were: to research, examine and evaluate existing official data for their usability for cultural statistical questions, to develop a set of instruments for sector-specific reporting and to develop indicators. The focus of the second project phase was on the creation of further sectoral reports and the provision of further indicators. The already published products of the two projects include:
- Culture financial reports (2014, 2016, 2018, 2020)
- Cultural Indicator Reports (2018, 2019, 2020)
- Divisional reports
- Music 2016
- Museums, Libraries and Archives 2017
- Building Culture, Monument Protection and Conservation 2018
- Film, Television and Radio 2019
- Socioculture and Arts Education 2020
- Visual Arts 2021
- Performing Arts 2021
- Special surveys (music festivals 2017). The following publications are planned for 2022: the Cultural Finance Report 2022, Cultural Indicators at a Glance, as well as the sector reports Literature and Press and Building Culture and Monument Preservation,
Nevertheless, there is no legal basis for cultural statistics in Germany – unlike in the education sector, for example, which has statistics ordered by federal and state law. Against the background of the approaching end of the above-mentioned projects on cultural statistics in Germany, their structural continuation and financing in Germany is currently being discussed.
With the aim of providing greater transparency about their cultural funding, some federal states, such as North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, and also numerous municipalities, such as Stuttgart, Wuppertal, Neuss and Ulm, are now publishing cultural reports.
Indicators
The source of the data presented here are the “Culture Finance Reports”. Since 2000, they have been published by the statistical offices of the Federation and the Länder, initially every three years and since 2006 every two years. The work of the statistical offices in the field of cultural statistics is accompanied by a working group on cultural statistics consisting of representatives of the German Association of Cities and Towns, the German Federal Statistical Office and the German Federal Statistical Office.
Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, two state ministries of culture and other experts. The most recent version of the Culture Finance Report – the “Culture Finance Report2020” (https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bildung- Forschung-Kultur/Kultur/Publikationen/Downloads-Kultur/kulturfinanzbericht-1023002209004.pdf? blob=publicationFile= was published in December 2020. It contains the provisional ACTUAL data for all 3 local authorities from 2017; for the federal government and the Länder, the provisional actual is still available for 2018 and 2019 and the target for 2020.
According to the “Culture Finance Report 2020”, the public sector (Federal Government, Länder and municipalities) spent a total of 11.4 billion euros on culture (theatre and music, libraries, museums, collections and exhibitions, monument protection and preservation, cultural affairs abroad, public art colleges, other cultural care and administration for cultural affairs) in 2017 (according to financial statistics in delimitation according to the basic funds concept). The municipalities provided a budget of 5.1 billion euros (44.4% of total public cultural expenditure), while the Länder provided 44.4 billion euros (38.7%). The federal government contributed a further 1.9 billion euros (17.0%) to public cultural funding.
In relation to Germany’s economic power, public spending on culture reached a share of 0.35% of the gross domestic product in 2017. Overall, public budgets allocated 1.77% of their total budget to culture. Public cultural expenditure per inhabitant was 138.21 euros in 2015.
According to the “Culture Finance Reports”, total public spending on culture has increased since 2005 as follows: EUR 7.98 billion (2005), EUR 9.36 billion (2010), EUR 9.39 billion (2011), EUR 9.44 billion (2012), EUR 9.84 billion (2013), 10.24 billion (2014), 10.41 billion (2015), 10.76 billion (2016) and 11.44 billion EUR (2017). Thus, public spending on culture in 2017 was EUR 3.44 billion more than in 2005, an increase of 43.1%.
Per capita expenditure also increased from EUR 98.20 (2005), EUR 116.65 on (2010) to EUR 116.84 (2011), EUR 117.23 (2012), EUR 121.80 (2013), EUR 126.12 (2014) 126.77 euros (2015), 130.42 (2016) and 138.21 euros (2017). This means that per capita public expenditure in 2017 was 40.01 euros more than in 2005, which corresponds to an increase of 40.7 per cent. In contrast, there was no continuous increase in the share of cultural expenditure in gross domestic product, which changed from 0.35 (2005), to 0.36 (2010), 0.35 (2011), 0.34 (2012), 0.35 (2013 and 2014), 0.34 (2015), 0.34 (2016) and 0.35% (2017).
A similar development can be seen in the share of public cultural expenditure in the total budget. This changed from 1.60 (2015), to 1.68 (2010 and 2011), 1.66 (2012), 1.67 (2013), 1.72 (2014),1.73 (2015), 1.72 (2016) and 1.77 (2017). In addition to public cultural expenditure, the public sector funded the cultural-related sector (i.e. adult education centres, other continuing education, church affairs as well as radio and television) with 2.2 2.0 billion euros in 2017. The Länder contributed 1.2 billion euros (54.4%), the federal government 0.65 billion euros (29.6%) and the municipalities 0.35 billion euros (15.9%).
In addition, the provisional actual figures for 2018 and 2019 and the target figures for 2020 are available for the federal and state levels. Federal cultural expenditure was €2.015 billion in 2018 and €2.123 billion in 2019 (provisional actual) and €2.432 billion in 2020 (target), while that of the Länder was €4.635 billion in 2018, €44.905 billion in 2019 (provisional actual) and €5.392 billion in 2020 (target).
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