Europe Grapples with Deep Culture Cuts
Submitted by Steve on July 17, 2012
From Robert Everett-Green at The Globe and Mail:
For Canadian artists, Europe often looks like the land of plenty, where governments subsidize cultural activities on a fantastic scale. But these days, European culturati are an embattled lot, especially in the euro states now writhing under the austerity diktats of the IMF and the euro zone’s own bailout agency. While they hack away at pensions, welfare and unemployment benefits, some governments feel they have no choice but to do a hard prune of cultural spending too.
Greek cuts to cultural budgets have run so deep (35 per cent since 2009) that thieves are raiding under-guarded museums, and archeologists are running a public poster campaign, urging people to “support Greek cultural heritage against IMF cuts.”