April 2002 - Nr. 4
Funding for Berlin’s Major Cultural Institutions Assured
TWIG - Despite the dismal state of Berlin’s finances, all of the city’s major cultural institutions will be spared budgetary cuts. Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit (SPD) announced Tuesday (March 19) that none of the city’s many opera houses, theaters and museums, which make Berlin a cultural capital not only of Germany, but the world, will suffer as a result of the city’s new fiscal austerity program.
Wowereit said Berlin’s biggest cultural institutions needn’t fear budget cuts, but warned that additional funds would not be forthcoming either. "We are searching for ways to make the big institutions [financially] fit," he said.
Berlin’s culture minister Thomas Flierl (PDS) announced that the capital district will stop its yearly contributions of some 31 million euros (US$ 27 million) to the Foundation for Prussian Cultural Heritage in 2003. At present, Berlin and the foundation share the cost of renovating and expanding Museum Island, a cluster of world-class historical and art museums. But Flierl’s announcement makes clear that the city hopes the federal government will assume fiscal responsibility for the upkeep of this complex, some of which is badly deteriorated.
To achieve additional savings, a few art-world fusions are also planned: The ballet corps of the Staatsoper and Deutsche Oper will be merged to yield annual savings estimated at 1 million euros. Two literary houses will come under the management of a single umbrella administration. And Berlin will reduce the size of subsidies it now makes for the renovation or preservation of several of the city’s historic buildings and exhibition halls, and stop all subsidies for two small theaters, the Schlosspark and Volkstheater Hansa.
