[markolohmus]

News from Estonia 02-04-20

At its meeting on March 31, the Council of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia decided to establish special measures to support culture and sport fields.

Special scholarship
In order to maintain the activities of creative persons in difficulties caused by a COVID-19 virus outbreak, the Council of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia established a measure allowing sub-endowments and county expert groups to maintain their activities. The limit of the special scholarship in expert groups is up to 500 € and in sub-endowments up to 2000 €.
All legal and natural persons can submit proposals for the special scholarship to creative persons affected by an emergency situation. The period for applications is from 6 April up to 30 April.
On the basis of the received proposals, the sub-endowments and expert groups make decisions on initiating special scholarships based on the financial possibilities of the endowment or the county expert group.

Drug subsidies
The Council of the Cultural Endowment established the possibility to support creative persons with drug grants between the application rounds during the crisis period. The purpose of the drug subsidy is to support partly the drug costs of persons who are excelled in the fields of culture. The drug subsidy may apply a natural or a legal person to cover the drug costs of a natural person.

[markolohmus]

Dear colleagues, excellent initiative. And great opportunity to see how (and if) cultural policy emergency tools work.
First – just a brief overview of a situation in Estonia. Since Friday, March 13, The Government of Estonia has declared the emergency situation, which includes: all public gatherings are prohibited. Museums and cinemas will be closed to visitors until 1 May. All performances, concerts, and conferences are prohibited. Libraries will remain open only to a limited extent.
Since today, 16 March, all primary, basic, secondary, vocational schools as well as hobby schools, higher education establishments and universities are required to suspend regular classroom studies and switch over to remote and home studying.
All sports competitions are prohibited until 1 May.

Before taking any measures on the state level, the Ministry of Culture started mapping the damages which such kind of closing of cultural institutions entails for them. It started with state or state-owned foundations: theatres opera houses, orchestras, museums. Ministry also sent a survey to those organisations, which get a state grants for this year.
Estonian Music Council distributed a questionnaire on Friday to concert organizers and musicians/choirs/orchestras/ensembles to chart lost revenue from concerts, including royalties, and expenses incurred. By Friday, March 20, the special commission will start to work out different scenarios as a result of this data: for the crisis lasting until May, for the crisis lasting until the end of summer and for the longer term.

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