Today, President of Latvia Egils Levits had a remote meeting with Edgars Vērpe, Director of the State Culture Capital Foundation (SCCF), Valts Ernštreits, Chair of the SCCF Council, and Linda Karlina, Deputy Director of SCCF. He underlined the important role played by the institution in the context of culture policy. Discussion focused on current and future activities of SCCF, and scope of cultural policy.
‘Our government must provide continuous increase of State Culture Capital Foundation budget. I do not agree with those who say that Latvian culture is overfunded. Compared to big countries, culture plays much more significant role, and has more profound influence on the society, in small countries like Latvia. In a growing economy, culture becomes more significant in everyone’s personal perception of well-being. We can clearly see it here in Latvia and our diaspora abroad. That is what surveys suggest,’ said President of Latvia.
Valts Ernštreits underlined that SCCF is the main pillar of democratic culture process in Latvia as it financially supports good projects developed by cultural institutions and non-governmental actors, while also keeping them in line with culture policy priorities defined at the national level. Mr Vērpe mentioned that the very establishment of SCCF amidst the war, on 18 November 1920, is a testimony to the immense role of culture in the eyes of political leaders at the time, for they decided that it should be funded in a concrete fashion from different tax streams.
Support to culture media was another major topic of the meeting. President of Latvia reiterated his position regarding the immense role of culture media in supporting intellectual diversity and development of intellectual thought. Representatives of the SCCF told President that additional 230,000 euro allocated for SCCF’s programmes will be diverted to help media recover and keep focusing on future projects. This support is expected to cater to the needs of 14 culture media working in all niches of the sector. It was also underlined that design of the programme offers dynamic support, i.e., allowing development of new media with quality content for the public consumption.
Egils Levits urged to focus the future debate on wider SCCF programme coverage, new programme design and additional public investments in research in the fields like history, philosophy and public policies, because support available to these disciplines has been included and delivered in scope of other culture sector activities, for example, heritage. Everyone agreed that such support scheme is crucial for development of Latvia and additional public funding should be channelled into specific line of SCCF programme.
As far as Fund’s future plans are concerned, its representatives mentioned that it has the smallest budget among its Baltic counterparts. Mr Vērpe said that annual support capacity of the Fund reaches only 20 % of all projects seeking funding. SCCF’s Director also said that the Fund is switching to new funding model from next year – a one based on alcohol, tobacco, gambling and lottery tax revenue, but the allocated percentage is too low and should be doubled.
State support of culture industry players hit by COVID-19 was another topic discussed during the meeting. SCCF representatives outlined necessary improvements in support criteria and procedures needed to fit the specific needs of culture industry.