Berlin Faces Backlash Over Proposed Cut to Culture Budget

Berlin’s plan to cut its cultural budget by €130 million, a reduction of around 13 percent, has sparked a wave of opposition from the city’s arts workers.

More than 450 publicly funded institutions, including galleries, theaters and music venues are now protesting the budget cuts under the campaign Berlin Is Culture, the Guardian reports. Cultural workers warn that the move could lead to closures and mass layoffs, destabilizing the German city’s arts infrastructure in the long term.

There are around 170 museums and more than 400 galleries in Berlin, and some have already begun planning for a dark future. The Schinkel Pavillon, a beloved contemporary art space, has said it could lose 50 percent of its funding—and may even be forced to close.

Outside the art world, the Schaubühne theater and the Berliner Ensemble have already begun planning for the reductions, with the latter canceling programming for 2025. The former has said it is planning for insolvency and can’t meet promises for wage increases.

As part of the government’s broader proposal, cuts to the cultural budget range from €110 to €150 million for 2025 and 2026. German arts workers expect that the measures, part of a broader austerity effort by the city’s government, will threaten nearly a third of fine art studios, reduce funding for exhibitions and public art, and cut resources for arts education programs.

Two years ago, Berlin’s government said it would increase the city’s art and culture budget to €947 million. Joe Chialo, Berlin’s culture senator, pledged to raise that figure by 2025, making Berlin’s annual budget €1 billion next year.

In a statement opposing the cuts, bbk berlin, an arts nonprofit that represents 3,000 visual artists in Germany, said the cuts disproportionately target arts and culture, the smallest budgetary department, which makes up only 2.5 percent of Berlin’s overall budget. The cuts the department faces far exceed an appropriate proportion, the group claims.

According to bbk berlin, the immediate impact includes the potential closure of nearly 300 studios within the workspace program and a 10 percent cut to funds that finance municipal gallery exhibitions.

Protests are planned to take place outside Berlin City Hall on November 29.