The years after the 2018 parliamentary elections that produced a 2/3 majority for the third consecutive time for Fidesz, and particularly after the 2019 local government elections with important gains by the opposition, are characterised by major changes in the structure of the public cultural institutions.
The short Act CXXIV of 2019 postulates the concept of ‘institutions of cultural strategy’, offering a list of 17 organisations that range from the National Theatre to the Film Institute. Besides 11 budgetary institutions, these include 4 nonprofit limited companies and 2 nonprofit shareholding companies (these two are the above mentioned first and last items on the list). Next to 16 customary cultural institutions, the newly founded Institute for Hungarian Studies (Magyarságkutató Intézet, in fact a research centre) belongs to the group of 17. They will be financed by the national budget based on five-year agreements with the government. The same Act established the National Cultural Council chaired by a minister and comprising the heads of the cultural strategy institutions plus the chairman of the Hungarian Arts Academy – MMA.
In July 2021 a government decision (1501/2021) raised the current annual subsidies of the ‘institutions of cultural strategy’ by about 10% and instructs the competent ministries to earmark about one billion euro of additional resources for the same purpose in the next five years.
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