Past The Cultural Deadline

The deadline for the consultation over whether the Dutch government should cut its cultural spending by 25 percent passed June 20, and the outcome will likely be known within a week.

Geert Wilders from the conservative Party For Freedom (PVV) wants to slash the arts budget from euro 800 million to euro 200 million, which would have most impact in the country’s various music projects.

The flagships of Dutch classical culture such as the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Dutch National Ballet and Netherlands Opera would suffer only minimal cuts, while Music Centre The Netherlands – which provides financial help to Eurosonic Noorderslag showcase conference and Dutch music export platforms at such gatherings as SXSW, CMJ, and Germany’s Reeperhahn and Popkomm showcases – faces being wiped out.

“We will protest the cuts but it will be of little use because the government doesn’t read or listen,” Arjen Davidse, head of rock, jazz and world music at Music Centre The Netherlands, told Pollstar when the proposed cuts were first announced.

Within two years all 60 people working at MCN could lose their jobs.

“Twenty-five years ago the Dutch government was the first to support its rock and pop music talent, which has since been followed by others all over Europe and in Australia, Japan and Canada,” Davidse explained. “They have all copied the Dutch example and made it work for them but now The Netherlands may end up with nothing.”

Eurosonic creative director Peter Smidt says funding is awarded every four years and the internationally known event in Groningen won’t suffer until 2013, but after that there will be less money to promote Dutch acts at the annual showcase or anywhere else.

The changes in cultural policy date back two years when the election returned a coalition government headed by the Liberals and supported by the Conservatives.

It also has the support of the far-right Dutch Freedom Party, whose election manifesto included a promise to “abolish the arts.”