Public spending on culture by the Catalan administrations amounted to 1,235 million euros in 2022, or in other words, 158 euros per inhabitant, a figure significantly higher than the previous year but still far from the European average of 220 euros. , as well as the objective of 2% of total spending on Culture.
This is what the “Annual report on the state of culture and arts in Catalonia 2022” of the National Council for Culture and the Arts (CoNCA), presented this Thursday in Barcelona by the president of CoNCA, Vinyet Panyella, points out. and the member of the plenary Salvador Casals. According to the document, of the 158 euros per inhabitant, 109,109 come from the local administration — deputations, regional councils and town halls — while the remaining 49 are provided by the Generalitat.
Casals has pointed out the growth in public culture budgets since 2019, when it was 1,004 million euros and 131 euros per inhabitant, while in 2021 it grew slightly to 133 euros per inhabitant per year. The report also points out the slow recovery of the cultural sector after the pandemic, confirming its full reactivation although last year it was still 3% below 2019.
Cinema is the sector that is doing the worst in the recovery, weighed down by a drop in audiences in movie theaters of 41% compared to 2019, a figure that contrasts with the 70% rise in subscriptions to digital platforms for audiovisual content between 2020. and 2022. Sectors such as artistic and literary creation, photography, design or live music have also failed to recover, although the number of scheduled live music concerts has “significantly increased.” On the contrary, the book sector has shown signs of strength with a growth of 13% in 2022. As for museums and collections, the figures that have been released are from 2021, when they received about 9.1 million of visitors, double that of 2020, but only 38% of the number of visitors in 2019.
On the other hand, the CoNCA has highlighted the budget increase of the Department of Culture, and hopes that it will reach the “mythical 2%” at the end of the term, and the introduction of participatory processes in the National Pact for Language and in the drafting of the draft bill on cultural rights. The president of the organization has also not let it pass that if the State’s contributions in terms of cultural and scientific co-capitality to different facilities in Barcelona were “consolidated”, this would be “a good way” to increase expenses per inhabitant.
Both Panyella and Casals have regretted the low legislative activity in the Parliament in the field of culture, highlighting that in 2022 only one modification of the Catalan Cultural Heritage Law was approved to introduce greater protection of emblematic establishments. In this sense, they urged the renewal of laws that are “delayed by more than 30 years” such as those on museums or intangible cultural heritage, underlining that the legal framework is the basis of effective cultural policies, and highlighting the need to cultural patronage laws.
