New containment: measures to support cultural entities, companies and workers

15.01.2021

The Minister of Culture, Graça Fonseca, said at a press conference that "the measures to contain the pandemic have a particular impact on the cultural sector and a number of measures are needed to support entities, companies and workers".

Thus, the Garantir Cultura (Guarantee Culture) Programme, of 42 million euros, is a universal, no concessional and non-repayable support, which represents the first phase of implementation of a programme approved by the State Budget for 2021. This is a programme of support for cultural and artistic work, and includes all the companies and legal entities in the sector and professional individuals in the area.

The Garantir Cultura Programme has two major objectives: 

  • to support entities that operate live and independent cinemas, and producers, promoters and agents of artistic shows, with a commitment to physical or digital programming
  • support people or entities from all artistic sectors for programming that can cover physical or digital presentations.

Tenders

The minister said that "due to the exceptionality of 2021 there will be no tenders for support from the Directorate-General for the Arts (DGArtes)", with sustained support:

  • to the 75 eligible but unsupported entities of the 20-21 tender, worth 12 million euros
  • to the 12 entities that did not receive the full support of the 2020-21 tender
  • and renewed support for the 186 entities receiving the sustained support. 

The calls for tender that would be opened in the 1st quarter are postponed for a further year of support.

DGArtes will also support projects of the 368 entities that applied for the project support call and were not supported, amounting to 8.4 million euros, and will open a support programme for the network of theatres and cine-theatres, with a new call for tenders at the end of 2021.

The Regional Directorates for Culture have been instructed to open the support to non-professional entities.

Cinema, music and book

For cinema and audiovisual, there will be a 1.4 million euros reinforcement of the 2020 tender, allowing support for six more works.

As for music, in dialogue with the radios, it was decided "to increase the share of Portuguese music in radios to 30%, a share which has existed since 2009 and which had never been updated".

For authors, publishers and bookstores:

  • grants to support literary creation were reinforced, opening 24 grants to the value of 270 thousand euros
  • there will be a programme to purchase books from small and medium-sized independent bookstores worth 300 thousand  euros
  • and a 300 thousand euros editing helpline.

For museums, as part of the programme supporting initiatives and projects of non-national museums that are part of the Portuguese Network of Museums, a 600 thousand euros line will be launched so that, as soon as they can reopen, they can develop activities and programmes to attract the public.

For cultural professionals, i.e. all workers who have their main activity (economic activity code or IRS) in the sector, support worth 438 euros has been created.

The minister said that the government is "aware that this stop has a particularly strong impact on workers in the sector, and this support aims to mitigate it," adding that it can be accumulated with other Social Security support and with the renewal of the layoff scheme.

Source: Portal do Governo