The Government approves the draft law on cultural rights
The text also provides that the Culture budget will not be less than 2%
BarcelonaThe Catalan government approved the draft law on cultural rights this Tuesday, which "establishes and guarantees the rights of all people living in Catalonia to access and participate in culture." The text, drafted at the end of the previous term during the government of Pere Aragonès (ERC), will finally reach Parliament in a few weeks for debate and voting.
"Everyone has the right to freely access cultural life, without any discrimination, and everyone has the right to organize and develop cultural activities and practices, to associate, and to participate in the deliberative and governance processes of cultural entities," says Xavier Fina, Director General of Cultural Promotion and Libraries. To ensure these rights, it is necessary to "establish mechanisms for listening and instruments to encourage this participation in Catalonia's cultural system," Fina adds. Equal access and participation (without the weight of the inherited cultural burden becoming unbalanced) is the key to a bill that, in each chapter, includes the right-guarantee binomial, and whose ultimate objective is to ensure that culture effectively becomes "one of the pillars of the welfare state." Furthermore, the text stipulates that the Culture budget cannot be less than 2%.
The bill aims to promote cultural diversity in programming, collections, and festivals, and to guarantee and encourage free participation in the country's cultural events; decentralize the cultural offering, facilitate access for groups at risk of exclusion, and guarantee cognitive, sensorial, and physical accessibility; encourage participation in the design and development of cultural programming and establish advisory bodies with representation from the country's social diversity; create mechanisms against censorship; promote safe environments for the free creation and dissemination of culture; Promote the Council for Artistic Education and foster joint programs between the cultural, educational, and university sectors; and promote measures to combat job insecurity and foster work-life balance, training, and equal opportunities.