Berlin to Slash €130 Million from Culture Budget

The Schaubühne theater says it is on the brink of bankruptcy, while the Berliner Ensemble will slash at least five planned productions

The Senate in Berlin has proposed to cut ten percent of the city's culture budget in 2025, resulting in outcry across the sector. The proposed cuts will see €130 million slashed from funding for culture, as part of the CDU-SPD coalition government's promise to reduce the city's overall budget by more than €3 billion.

It is not just culture that is suffering: €370 million will be cut from education, and there are also significant cuts in sectors such as science, healthcare, digital, justice, sports, and more.

The Schaubühne, which is Berlin's major theater, will have €1.8 million removed from its budget, of which €700,000 was planned for allocation to wages. In a statement, the theater said the proposed budgets cuts would lead to its bankruptcy as early as 2025, and it is already planning to close Studio, its smaller and more experimental venue.

Berliner Ensemble, another important theater company, will lose €1.75 million per annum — and its artistic director, Oliver Reese, says it will cancel "at least five" productions as a result.

More than 450 culture organizations that rely on state subsidies, including theatres, opera houses, nightclubs, and galleries, have come together to protest the cuts.

"If you destroy [the culture budget], you are destroying even more than the culture," said Thomas Ostermeier, artistic director of the Schaubühne. "You are also destroying tourism, and the attractiveness for certain commercial companies to settle in this city is also reduced."

"In addition to their work, numerous artists, people in the houses, institutions, networks and all structures of the cultural landscape have struggled all year long, from vague threats of cuts to empty reassurances to offers of talks that were never fulfilled," said BerlinIstKultur, a lobby group that is opposing the cuts.

"The cancellation of existing contracts and obligations will be followed by compensation and legal disputes. That is neither economical nor economical."

"Liquidation within four weeks at the end of the year will force bankruptcies and layoffs under the Christmas tree. That is neither Christian nor social," it continued, in a reference to the current governing parties, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

(PC: Christian von Polentz/transitfoto.de)