The Law on Theatres was passed in the Croatian Parliament in spring 2006 and came into force on 1 January 2007. This Law brought some reforms to the rules and criteria for funding theatres and theatre groups, as well as managing public theatres, including four national theatres. The Law established theatre councils as the bodies responsible for monitoring the programme and business plans of theatres. The 2013 changes to the Law on Theatres introduced changes in the election procedures of the commissary of the Croatian National Theatre, and on the election and tasks of its Theatre Council. Against public and expert opinion which considers that Croatia already has too many national theatres (four), the Law provided the status of national theatre to the municipal theatre in Varaždin. Only several months after the changes which provoked heated discussions, the Law was changed again (January 2014). In 2022, the draft of the new Law on Theatres and Theatre activities was put into public discussion, and caused again debates in the professional community. The main critique was oriented towards the procedures of appointment of the theatre directors and management councils, the role of theatre councils and the status of theatre workers. The draft of the new Law passed the first reading in the Parliament in October 2022, and the final version of the Law is awaited to be adopted during the finalisation of this report at the beginning of 2023.
The Ministry of Culture and Media holds a register of theatres, while special rulebooks regulate festivals of national importance such as Split Summer Festival, Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Varaždin Baroque Evenings, Osor Musical Evenings, Šibenik International Children’s Festival and Zagreb International Folklore Festival. Regarding the music sector, regulations are mainly addressed within the Law on Copyright and Related Rights (see chapters 4.1.6. and 3.5.4). There is no specific legislation related to street arts or circus.
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