3 million euros, money allocated for cultural activities in Cluj-Napoca. Which NGOs receive money from the Cluj budget

On Tuesday, 3 million euros were allocated to the cultural sector in Cluj-Napoca.

“It is the largest allocation in the history of Cluj. It is 16.2 million lei, i.e. over 3 million euros. There are 176 organizations and foundations that submitted 164 projects. There are also 12 social projects, (which receive) an amount of 700,000 lei”, Emil Boc declared on Tuesday.

Boc specified that the amount for this sector increased 8 times compared to 2012, when a total of 2 million lei were allocated for this sector. The largest amount was allocated this year for the organization of the Cluj-Napoca International Film Festival. We are talking about 1.8 million lei.

Money was allocated, among others, for the Jazz in the Park festival, Toamna Muzicală Clujană, Opera Aperta, the Interferences festival, the Cluj Cultural Center, the Puck festival or the Hungarian Cultural Days, but also for the “Dumitru Fărcaș” festival and for the events dedicated to this year of Avram Iancu.

Emil Boc was recently criticized for not subjecting the culture funding regulation to public debate

We remind you that Mayor Emil Boc was recently criticized for not submitting to public debate the regulation for funding culture based on the OG51/1998 law. Several important cultural institutions in Cluj-Napoca, such as the Cluj Cultural Center, the Transylvania International Film Festival (through Tudor Giurgiu and Cristian Hordilă), the Romanian National Opera, the Hungarian State Theater (through Tompa Gabor), the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania, the Philharmonic of State, the Hungarian Opera in Cluj, the Lucian Blaga National Theater signed the petition presented to the Cluj-Napoca Local Council.

This regulation calls for the support of local cultural producers, by passing the funding on the basis of OG51, a special culture law, which ensures the transparency and depoliticization of the selection procedure of cultural projects and provides for multiannual budgeting and the creation of other support tools, such as artistic residencies and scholarships creation, so that Cluj-Napoca continues to have a dynamic cultural life. Cluj artists went to meet Emil Boc at the Local Council meeting on February 12, to explain directly why local culture needs this regulation submitted by the leader of the USR councilors’ group, Alexandra Oană, in December, but the mayor Emil Boc welcomed them then with insults.

“Talk about politicization. This City Council you criticize has made you who you are today. These local councilors whom you vilify and whom you say are incompetent, that they are engineers, they made the culture of Cluj, after all, through their decisions. Yes. So I would ask you to respect them because they created what is today in Cluj”, said Emil Boc.

Later, the mayor Emil Boc retreated and announced that a new regulation will be made for granting non-reimbursable money for culture.

In the meeting of the City Council on March 4, Mayor Emil Boc returned and announced that a working group would be created, made up of City Hall employees and representatives of the cultural environment: Cluj Cultural Center, Romanian Opera, Creat Act Enjoy, Daiszler, Asociația Culturală Pro Transilvania, the Art Museum, Magic Puppet, Alt Art, TIFF, in order to draft the new regulation for granting non-refundable funds from the local budget.