It is not yet clear how much money the state will contribute to live art this year

Prague - The Ministry of Culture still does not know exactly how much money from its budget it will allocate this year for the support of live arts, which it subsidizes through a grant process. The office knows how much money it will draw from the state budget, but the exact distribution of finances is still being created. For the first time, the office has also officially admitted that last year the grant procedures were reinforced in conflict with the decision of the Chamber of Deputies by only 20 million crowns, not 80 million crowns.
    This sum managed to increase last year's ministry budget during the discussions of the deputies about the state budget, known as the "slicing of the bear." Later, the ministry signed an agreement with representatives of artistic communities on how the money would be used. Nevertheless, the grant budget was not increased. Where exactly the money ended up is not clear yet, and it will only be retrievable from the annual report for the past year. The amount that will go into the grant process this year is now up to the new minister.
    The grant system, which is a significant source of income for many artists and associations, has long been criticized by the recipients of subsidies and underwent a testing period last year. The then Minister of Culture Vítězslav Jandák wanted to abolish expert commissions and decide on tens of millions of crowns himself with his advisors. His successor Martin Štěpánek returned to the method of grant management that was established during the tenure of Minister Pavel Dostál, and according to the director of the minister's secretariat Milan Kupka, the ministry supplemented it with more transparent rules in closer cooperation with the professional public.
    However, even under Dostál, money was allocated outside the grant procedures, and Jandák continued this practice. He and others in leadership decided who would receive support from the ministry. Expert commissions had no chance to comment on this. According to Yvona Kreuzmannová, director of the Tanec Praha organization and one of the founders of the Initiative for Culture association, most of the mentioned 80 million crowns ended up elsewhere – among other things, the minister allegedly paid for projects that he decided on himself with his closest associates from the office's leadership.
    Kreuzmannová mentioned, for example, a three-million crown support for the International Music Festival in Český Krumlov, Jandák's electoral district. The festival organizer lobbied other deputies and obtained an additional two million. However, for dozens of other music festivals in the Czech Republic, barely ten million crowns were left. Other support along this route was received by the Zlín Film Festival (15 million) or Anifest Třeboň (nine million). Critics of these practices, however, point out more to the unsystematic distribution of money, which depends on the current decisions of politicians, rather than on the demonstrable quality of the supported events.
    Even the ministry today acknowledges that last year's increase in grants by 20, not 80 million crowns is completely insufficient given the number of grant applications in the arts sector. It also stated that over 16 million crowns were paid out outside grant procedures.
    The mentioned 80 million crowns were supposed to go to grants in the arts sector, specifically 37.5 million for the support of significant international festivals outside events regularly supported by the Chamber and 42.5 million directly for grant procedures in the fields of theater, music, dance, visual arts, and literature.
    Former Minister Štěpánek promised that the practice of distributing money without a selection procedure would end. However, the internet portal Aktuálně.cz reported on Monday that the ministry under his leadership paid out several hundred thousand crowns in December for projects that did not pass through the process. Among other things, the Hálkovo City Theater in Nymburk, whose director was until last September the current Deputy Minister of Culture Adolf Toman, received 280,000 crowns. The Nymburk theater applied for funds in mid-December – allegedly because it failed to submit the grant application on time due to changes in leadership.
    The ministry allocated the money from the remainder of the budget, which cannot be transferred to the next year. Deputy Toman sees no problem in supporting his former workplace; he also considers this route to financial support to be transparent.