Although non-governmental actors occurred after 1990, their range of activities and impact vary widely. According to the list of registered NGOs made by the Romanian Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies, there are 187 active cultural NGOs in Romania, at the moment of writing. Their geographical distribution shows a polarisation around the major cities in Romania and NGOs are more active in the largest cities (with over 100,000 inhabitants). Their activities are mainly project-based and therefore depend upon adequate financing for these projects. Local authorities do not organise periodic consultations with non-governmental actors with a view to developing and shaping local cultural policies. A notable exception was the drafting of cultural policies for most of the 21 cities that entered the competition for the nomination of a Romanian city as European Capital of Culture 2021, when non-governmental actors were invited and participated actively in the process. A great part of this private sector is based on the human resource trained or even simultaneously employed in the public sector, which makes clear statistics harder. Mostly established as associations and foundations, they start by registering as operators with multiple NACE codes, reported irregularly.
At the central level, the Ministry of Culture has organised consultations with both public cultural institutions and non-governmental bodies with a view to discussing draft cultural policies (e.g. in 2013-14 and 2016) as well as proposed changes in cultural legislation (e.g. cinema law, copyright law). The most active non-governmental bodies are those involved in cinema and collective management of rights. Some NGOs have developed special expertise in the fields related to cultural policies and, from the empirical evidence gathered, it appears that these NGOs have, in recent years, become recognised and permanent dialogue partners with some local authorities. The extent and continuity of such dialogues and partnerships have not, as yet, been analysed and therefore no statistical data can be provided in this respect.
Comments are closed.