Culture crisis in Styria: Massive cuts threaten diversity!

Culture crisis in Styria: Massive cuts threaten diversity!

In Austria's Styria, it is boiling in the cultural area! Veronika Nitsche from the Greens warned in an urgent request to Karlheinz Kornhäusl (ÖVP) in an urgent request for cultural funding. "Parts of Styrian cultural life are massively threatened after only three months and ÖVP," she said sharply and spoke of unimaginable cuts of 30 to 100 percent. The cultural strategy 2030, which has been proven for years, to which many cultural workers had risen, becomes “hand -stroked to the waste”. Nitsche urged Kornhäusl to stop this "clear cut in the funding cuts", since the reorganization of cultural policy sends an alarming signal at this speed.

The Kornhäusl Cultural Council, on the other hand, sees the situation differently and emphasized that politics should not have power over art and culture. "Since to speak of a clearcut, I think it is brave and actually not quite okay," he replied, referring to rising cultural budgets in the past five years. Nevertheless, the pressure on cultural policy is enormous. On Thursday, the comprehensive reputation of the cultural board of directors was decided, which acts as a central advisory committee. Attention, there is a political extension here: Only two of the 15 members have remained, while Edith Draxl and twelve other members were recalled, which was criticized by the opposition as a "clear cut". More information was provided by Sn.at

Political turbulence in the cultural practitioner

The reactions of the opposition parties are vehemently. SPÖ club chairman Hannes Schwarz described the dismissions as a fatal sign of Styrian culture and criticized the apparently party-political motivation behind the personal exchange. The outgoing chairman Draxl was disappointed with the return to a politicized occupation that contradicts the cultural strategy. The Greens and NEOS warned that the cultural counselor had to be a platform for qualified voices, not for partisans. Any decision in relation to cultural funding from the Board of Trustees, which deals with around 1,000 applications annually, could be questioned in this way what is an alarming sign of the freedom of art, according to Nitsche.