Spain, motion in Senate to declare culture essential good, like health

Culture must be declared an essential good, like health oreducation: this is the content of the motion presented today in the Senate of Spain by Basque Senator Koldo Martínez Urionabarrenetxea, of the center-left Geroa Bai coalition. The document, which received the endorsement of all parties in the Senate (the first time this has happened in this legislature), as reported by the newspaper La Vanguardia, was unanimously approved by the Senate a short while ago and is therefore being transmitted to the government, which will have to approve it in turn to make the declaration effective.

During the reading of the text, the vice president of the Spanish Senate, Cristina Narbona, stressed the value of the motion because this is the first time in the legislature that began last December that a text proposed by a senator has been approved as an institutional declaration. It is therefore an “unprecedented” case, Narbona said, hoping that the same unity of purpose will prevail in the future.

Senator Martínez Urionabarrenetxea drafted the text together with members of the cultural world and representatives of the Union of Sector Associations of the Spanish Cultural Industry, the Federation of Music of Spain, the Association of Lyric Actors and the Union of Actors and Actresses, and has often remarked on the importance of this measure at a time such as the one we are going through: in Spain, the Basque senator recalled, there are 700,000 families who work in culture and therefore live off culture (and at this time see their survival at serious risk), and that beyond that the benefits produced on the body and mind by the arts are evident.

“From Geroa Bai,” said Martínez Urionabarrenetxea, “we are taking on a petition from several cultural and artistic sodalities, which have urged the government to declare Culture as an Essential Good. The culture sector has shown, during this crisis, the ability to adapt to the so-called new normal by initiating security and hygiene measures that have prevented the spread of contagion in performances and other artistic events. Consequently, we felt it necessary to affirm the essential character of those activities that, as experts from international bodies point out, produce great benefits for our bodies and our emotions.” According to Martínez, culture, as “the response that society gives to the problems it faces at every moment, contributes to our well-being and has proven to be an essential element in making confinement more bearable. We are all reminded of the images of the singers and musicians who enlivened our confinement from the balconies. So we believe that, with the appropriate control measures, Culture, in all its manifestations, is and must be present among all of us, especially in situations like the one we experienced, during which, in order to defend our health, we saw our freedom of movement restricted.”

Below is the full text of the motion: “The Senate declares it convenient for the Council of Ministers to approve, as has already happened in other countries, the declaration of Culture as an Essential Good, thus comparing an activity that is so necessary for the strengthening and cohesion of society, to other activities that have been protected by the state in separate stages of the measures taken by state, regional and local authorities during the Covid-19 crisis.”

Spain, motion in Senate to declare culture essential good, like health

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