Frankfurt culture: Hartwig, head of the cultural department, sees “theoretical savings volume”

Several open letters from Frankfurt's independent scene have criticized the planned cuts in the culture budget: The coalition agreement of the new city government provides for an increase in funding of 500,000 euros per year, but how the planned strengthening and the cuts estimated from 2023 to 2025 fit together cannot be explained .

Eva Maria Magel

Senior cultural editor of the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

• Follow I follow

The head of the culture department herself is skeptical about the planned savings: “The cuts planned in the medium-term budget plan will not be able to be made,” said Ina Hartwig (SPD) to the FAZ. Above all, the cuts in the municipal theaters planned for 2023 cannot be made .

"Everyone agrees on that." Nevertheless, the directors are aware of the current crisis situation.

Not only the annual tariff increases, but also higher energy costs would also have an impact on the stages.

Against this background, the subsidy to the stages is fundamentally limited, which is a structural problem.

"The Städtische Bühnen are a municipal theater whose fantastic offerings are popular with the surrounding communities," says Hartwig.

"Perspectively" must therefore be sought with the state government about this structural feature of Frankfurt.

Hartwig apparently does not see the recent rejection of the responsible art minister Angela Dorn (Die Grünen) as the last word.

“Culture is not an afterthought”

She is holding talks with the cultural-political representatives of the coalition factions.

The future of the municipal theaters and their new building is not related to the current budget draft.

The decision on the location is to be made this year, according to the consensus in the coalition.

"The consolidation target of more than seven million for the municipal theaters is a theoretical savings volume," says Hartwig.

The aim is to achieve a balanced budget by 2025.

"I warned about the psychological effect of such a planning requirement and I can understand the outcry.

But it also makes it clear that culture is not an afterthought.”

The flat-rate consolidation, which is specified by the Treasury, is distributed as a percentage of the items in the culture budget.

Since the municipal theaters take up a large part of the budget there, a large part of the consolidation to be carried out also falls there – technically speaking.

“The city's economic situation has already developed much more positively in the first few months of this year.

I assume that medium-term planning will change with the economic situation.” If you want a balanced budget by 2025, “you will have to think very carefully about whether you want to intervene in cultural structures.

Last but not least, culture is also an economic and tourism factor.

Before the pandemic, the excellent figures proved that.” However, she assumes that

It is understandable and a good thing that numerous representatives of the arts, especially the independent scene, are now speaking out with concern.

"The culture is articulating itself, and the coalition must hear this warning call." Here, too, it applies that in the current medium-term planning from 2023 onwards "the last word has not yet been spoken".

Among other things, the Alliance of Independent Artists had complained that they were not being sufficiently involved in the surveys of the current cultural development plan.

Hartwig rejects this.

After the first expert interviews, an online survey aimed at all Frankfurt cultural workers will soon begin.

This year's budget is to be decided on June 7, 2022, and medium-term planning from 2023 will be "discussed internally".

"I will raise my voice clearly in favor of the culture."

Christian Becker, cultural policy spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group, is already critical of the draft.

The savings targets for the municipal theaters cannot be met.

In the second product group, too, cutbacks are only listed as a lump sum in goods and services.

"Just a minus amount is not enough, we expect concrete savings proposals.

Medium-term planning doesn't mean that things will stay that way - or get worse." The CDU had previously criticized an increase in personnel in the department by around 40 percent.