For more information see chapter 7.3 Private funding of the individual country profiles.

Sources:
Total Government Expenditure on Culture (absolute figures).

Sources:
Compendium of Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe, 21th edition, 2019 (www.culturalpolicies.net), earlier versions of the Compendium and additional sources, where indicated.

Notes:
Compendium figures are generally based on official data for gross public expenditure (as defined in: www.culturalpolicies.net/web/files/134/en/compendium_stat_comp_zurich_2010-1.pdf). They include all levels of government in specific cultural domains and sub-domains However, data corresponding to this definition may not always be available (cf. Chapter 6 of the Compendium Country Profiles for details). Countries where only data from national state budgets can be compared are shown separately. In addition, administrative traditions of public involvement in the arts, heritage and media domains can, in some cases, influence results and should be taken into account in comparisons. As well, 2000, 2005 and 2010-13 may not always represent “typical” years for public cultural spending. In some countries, the most “cruel” cuts are not shown in this table, for example in the Netherlands, where national funding decreased by 22% from 2012 to 2013 or Hungary with cuts of -18% in 2012. Obviously, we are forced to “Making Compromises to Make Comparisons in Cross-national Arts Policy Research” (title of a legendary article published 1987 by the late Mark D. Schuster in the Journal of Cultural Economics)!

Additional caveats:
Especially as regards absolute figures (per capita expenditure):
Data could not be adjusted for price changes. In some countries, e.g. in Latvia, Poland or Sweden, parities between national currencies and the Euro changed frequently during the period studied in this table (parities were adjusted for the respective year). As well, lower per capita expenses in most of the East/Central European countries (e.g. Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Ukraine, etc.) can be partly explained by much lower average costs of main public services in the cultural domain (which also result in lower entrance fees or service rates, cf. the Compendium CUPIX index. For these and other reasons, per capita figures should be seen mainly as a rough indicator for trends within a given country!

Sources:
Data derived from the individual Compendium country profiles.

For more information see chapter 7.1.3 Expenditure per sector of the individual country profiles.

Source:
Council of Europe/ERICarts, Compendium of Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe, 14th edition, 2013.