Franceschini outlines guidelines for MiBACT: past strategy confirmed, focus on urgencies

Today at 2 p.m., the combined Culture Committees of the House and Senate at the Mappamondo Hall of the Collegio Romano, headquarters of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, held a hearing of Minister Dario Franceschini, who outlined the programmatic lines of his ministry. Franceschini, in essence, confirmed the lines that guided his previous tenure and listed what he sees as the main urgencies.

“One of the great challenges,” the minister said, “is to make culture policies become central to the country’s strategic choices: the country’s cultural heritage, both material and immaterial, of the past and the future, is one of the great opportunities to carry out the activities envisaged by Article 9 of the Constitution, but also to invest and enhance. It is not a stretch to say that MiBAC is the most important economic ministry in the country. Investing in culture means investing in what makes us unique and more competitive.”

As a first point, Franceschini stated that no “counter-reform of the counter-reform” (the reference is obviously to the Bonisoli reform) will be made, as according to the minister, “there has not been a counter-reform of the cultural heritage reform,” but “there have been corrections, some that I agree with and some that I do not agree with, but there has not been a counter-reform.” According to Franceschini, the cornerstones of the 2014 reform have remained, although some changes were introduced in August when the political crisis was already underway, and as a precautionary measure, the decrees implementing the dpcm were stopped: it will therefore be necessary, according to the minister, to understand what to confirm and what to correct in the Bonisoli reform.

Regarding the consolidation of what has already been done, the minister stressed the importance of investing, to the maximum extent possible, in the experience and know-how that there is in Italy in the field of cultural heritage and landscape protection, in application of Article 9 of the Constitution. “The heritage of the superintendencies,” Franceschini said, “must be protected, enhanced and defended, because it has made it possible to defend our territory in years when it was not obvious to do so: the single superintendencies, which have simplified the lives of many citizens and businesses by reducing the territorial extension of the superintendencies, represent a work that must be defended and confirmed. Having a single interlocutor to deal with landscape, artistic, architectural and archaeological heritage is a great opportunity over which we are not turning back.” The single superintendencies will therefore be strengthened.

Likewise, the Franceschini-led ministry will consolidate and improve the museum experience. “With the reform,” the minister pointed out, “we have brought something current and dynamic into the system: we were a very advanced country in protection, but we were decades behind in enhancement. There was no general museum directorate (which was created), there were no regional museum poles, and museums were offices of the superintendencies, headed by an official who had to deal with both protection and valorization. I think the experience of museum poles that gather all those museums that are not the autonomous and larger ones will have to be continued, because it has not worked as it was supposed to work.” The goal, Franceschini assures, is to improve the enhancement of smaller museums.

Also on the consolidation front, Franceschini announced that archives, libraries and cultural institutes will be defended and enhanced: “they are parts of the ministry of extraordinary importance but considered as daughters of a lesser god,” Franceschini said, but it is necessary to work on them because they represent an enormous and very important heritage. Finally, Franceschini believes that the role of cultural diplomacy should be strengthened because, the minister said, “if we invest in cultural diplomacy, in which we are a superpower, this puts us in a position to strengthen all our diplomacy, all our international relations: no country in the world has our cultural strength and creativity behind it.”

As for new challenges, however, according to Franceschini, it will be necessary to invest in what is not in MiBACT. “We have a huge heritage that we still have to protect and enhance,” the minister said, “but we have to get out of the pattern whereby because the protection of the past is so important and exhausting, then it becomes almost impossible to deal with the present or the future (investment in contemporary art and architecture, cultural and creative industries). There are countries, such as the United Kingdom, that do not have a heritage comparable to ours, but have invested in cultural industries and made it an important vehicle for economic development and tourism.” Another challenge will be tourism, which with a recent decree law is back with culture. “If the state wants to invest in promoting Italy’s image,” Franceschini said, “either make an autonomous tourism ministry, or keep tourism together with the vehicle that makes our tourism more competitive, which is culture.” In Italy, Franceschini pointed out, beach tourism, natural landscape and the like are side by side with the nation’s historical, cultural artistic and creative heritage, all of which makes the country unique.

Last, the theme of emergencies, which are mainly three. In order of how the minister listed them, the first is security, “a real issue,” the minister said, “for which we will need resources (some of which are already there thanks to the good work of my predecessor): we must not intervene only when there is an emergency.” The second is the need to recover investment capacity, and the third is staffing (currently, Franceschini let it be known, MiBACT has four thousand staffing shortages: “MiBAC,” the miniter concluded, “was already very old, an important competition was launched in this legislature (in which two hundred thousand people participated for 1,052 positions), but turnover is very fast and quota 100 has further placed us in a system of staff shortages. We need to find a remedy, because having gaps means slowing down work, closing museums, and so on.”

Franceschini outlines guidelines for MiBACT: past strategy confirmed, focus on urgencies

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