Federculture calls for table from Franceschini: "schedule culture reopenings now"

Federculture calls on the minister of cultural heritage, Dario Franceschini, for a permanent table of discussion for the revitalization and reform of the cultural sector, with one request in particular: to immediately define the timing and modalities for the reopening of museums, theaters, and cultural venues in general, which for Federculture represent the only “intangible refreshment” for citizens. Federculture also calls for the initiation of structural interventions for recovery. These are the conclusions reached by the board of directors of Federculture, which met last Dec. 15.

The association, while expressing its satisfaction with the approval of the decree implementing the Culture Fund (Article 184 of Decree-Law 34 of May 19), wants to take charge of the state of alarm of cultural enterprises and the entire world of culture, in relation to the government’s decisions to suspend the activities of museums, theaters, cinemas, exhibitions and cultural events, even though these have been strictly adapted to the most restrictive security rules: the dpcm of Dec. 3 in fact extended the closure of cultural venues until Jan. 15, and at the moment, however, it is not known whether everything will reopen on the 16th or whether new restrictions will be imposed, partly because the government is not planning to reopen. For this reason, Federculture believes that Italy should do what other European countries are doing: to define with certainty, at the very least, the timing and modalities of reopenings, to allow users to return to them and operators to mitigate the impact, not only economic, that the prolonged closure is causing on already fragile mechanisms.

The representatives of Italian cultural companies gathered in the Council of Federculture in this regard ask the Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism to set up a table, a permanent instrument of confrontation and consultation with the categories represented, aimed at verifying the measures being implemented and the use of resources derived from the Recovery Plan. Again, Federculture believes that, in addition to the emergency measures, although deemed necessary and useful, it is urgent to put hand to structural interventions that will enable the sector to restart at the time when it will again be possible to deploy its full potential.

Federculture therefore calls for the launching of a regulatory adjustment process based on five points: first, implement the indications of the 2018 Budget Law on cultural and creative enterprises; second, mobilize all possible resources, public and private, to support culture by extending all forms of tax breaks (from theArt Bonus to the defiscalization of cultural consumption); third, include, as already indicated, in European programs the infrastructural adjustment of all cultural venues (theaters, museums, libraries, etc.) so as to make them safe and welcoming for visitors, as well as to encourage better energy efficiency; fourth, again in the field of European funding, prepare a plan to digitize all the great archival heritage of our cultural institutions, in order also to enable remote research and enhancement work; and fifth, envisage a major investment campaign for a new cultural production in presence, in community and in digital from cities to villages, which is capable of revitalizing the whole country that will emerge exhausted from the pandemic. “Today more than ever,” comments the Federculture board, “Culture must be given the task of representing the engine of a ’new’ Italian Welfare, that is, a key element of living in community and in the cohesion of our country, the most relevant factor of our formation and our recognition in the world.”

Federculture calls for table from Franceschini: "schedule culture reopenings now"

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