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Culture Committee Criticizes Draft Budget: “A Fatal Signal”

Culture Committee Criticizes Draft Budget: “A Fatal Signal”
Cultural institutions in rural Saxony rely on financial support. (File photo) / Photo: Hendrik Schmidt/dpa
From: DieSachsen News
Saxony likes to boast about its rich culture. But in times of tight budgets, even the cultural sector has to watch every euro carefully.

The Saxon Cultural Senate considers the government’s draft for the 2027/28 biennial budget to be a “disastrous signal.” “The planned budget cuts will weaken, of all things, the very structures that support art and culture throughout the state—especially the independent arts scene and rural areas,” the committee announced in Dresden. The cuts are disproportionate to the damage they will cause to cultural policy. 

Key funding instrument for independent arts is being weakened

“This undermines the repeatedly emphasized importance of culture for social cohesion, democracy, and the attractiveness of rural areas,” argued the Cultural Senate. The cuts to the Free State’s Cultural Foundation are particularly severe. “With funding cuts of up to 50 percent in the support sector, the most important funding instrument for independent arts will be significantly weakened.”

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Committee Sees Cultural Diversity in Saxony at Risk

The Culture Senate had already warned against undermining the Cultural Foundation’s funding during the 2025/26 biennial budget process. “Instead of taking these warnings seriously, the cuts now proposed go even further than the cuts made at that time. The Cultural Foundation supports more than 1,000 projects annually, more than half of which are carried out outside Saxony’s major cities.” Cutting funding on this scale jeopardizes cultural diversity and weakens rural areas.

Demand: Maintain funding at current levels

“We need planning certainty and an answer to the question of which cultural structures Saxony intends to preserve and what development opportunities it aims to create,” the Cultural Senate concluded. The draft budget threatens to “usher in a partial decline of cultural diversity and renders long-term visions obsolete.” The state parliament is now called upon to make adjustments during the budget process and to secure funding for the arts and culture at least at the level of the previous two-year budget.

The Saxon Cultural Senate is a volunteer-based body comprising 24 representatives from the arts and culture sectors in the Free State of Saxony. They are appointed by the Minister-President. The Cultural Senate’s task is to provide advisory support for the state and municipalities’ funding policies for the arts and culture and to formulate recommendations for substantive and regional priorities. It also comments on fundamental cultural policy issues.

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