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"Culture and Economy - a possible dialogue about new policy measures" by Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga

Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga - International Cultural Centre of Krakow

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Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga

Culture and economy - a possible dialogue about new policy measures

Abstract

In the past years many cities have chosen cultural and art projects as ways of stimulating development and urban regeneration. One of the most known examples is the regeneration of Bilbao, including such flagship projects like the Guggenheim Museum, the Euskalduna Congress and Music Hall, which turned a crumbling industrial centre into a flourishing city ready for the new millennium challenge. Another great example here would be Glasgow, which is one of the few European Capitals of Culture associated with broad transformation and successful culture-led regeneration programme – to some extend a benchmark for all the other cities. The presentation will try to answer the following questions in this context. What makes some cities more successful than the other in implementing culture-led development plans? Why in some cities cultural events have a great impact on the development? In the case of Kraków, unlike Glasgow, the title of European Capital of Culture had little influence on the city’s condition. What went wrong? In the first years of Polish membership in the EU there were 217 culture-related projected financed within the European structural funds. What could contribute to their success? One of the answers would be municipalities having a coherent plan for a city’s development including all sectors and their awareness of the delicate culture and heritage problems.

Introduction

Recent years have shown an increasing interest in culture within the economic context, insofar as culture can be used especially as a tool for regional and city development. A number of examples could be cited where culture has been used as a way to attract tourists or even investors to raise the level of life of the inhabitants.

Owen (2002) claims that hallmark events which also take place in the domain of culture, are important redevelopment tools to be utilized by entrepreneurial governments. In the past many cities have chosen cultural and art projects as ways of stimulating development and urban regeneration. One of the most known examples is the case of Bilbao (Murzyn 2002) where a strategic redevelopment plan, including flagship projects such as the Guggenheim Museum, the Euskalduna Congress and Music Hall, turned a crumbling industrial centre into a flourishing city ready for the challenges of the new millennium.

Another example worth mentioning here is Glasgow, which is one of the few European Capitals of Culture associated with great transformation and successful culture-led regeneration programme – to some extend a benchmark for all the other cities (e.g. Garcia 2005, 2004). Culture was a very important component in the redevelopment of this ex-industrial city in decline. Revitalization included building a new concert hall and other art spaces which attracted large number of tourists.

Both cases were followed by discussions concerning the real beneficiaries of the change, of the transformation as well as negative opinions on the final outcomes. (e.g. Mooney 2004). Nevertheless, one might draw a conclusion that the culture becomes a more and more important tool in the development process.

The newly developed attitude towards culture prompts the need for greater analysis as well as the possibly of creating such policy measures which take into consideration the following two aspects. On the one hand, bearing in mind the role culture can play in economic development, it would appear that there should be measures introduced that facilitate the creation and implementation of development strategies that would include culture as a tool to achieve the development goals. On the other hand, if there is an increasing agreement on the beneficial role of culture as a development factor, there should be introduced financial schemes to facilitate cultural projects.

This article will present a preliminary analysis of two examples of cultural endeavors – Kraków 2000, the European City of Culture and the European Structural Funds allocated to Poland in the period of 2004-2006. The analysis will be done in the context of a growing awareness and the altered attitude of the government towards using culture as a tool for development with ramifications for policy measures when it comes to implementation. The EU financial support for Poland over the years included the pre-accession support (PHARE and ISPA), the structural funds support (since 2004) and the Community programmes. The chosen examples mentioned above seem to have the greatest potentials to promote development. As both cases are associated with EU cultural policy, the article shall briefly comment on this to introduce the subject.

Culture and economy from the EU perspective

Not earlier than 1991 and the Maastricht Treaty was culture taken into consideration by the European Communities. Article 151 of the Maastricht Treaty introduced the obligation of analyzing cultural aspects in any action the Community undertakes, including in the economic and social spheres. Nevertheless, the European institutions, including the European Commission’s Directorate General for Education and Culture did not seem to take into account for quite a long time the socio-economic aspect of the cultural and creative sector. The first Community programme in the field of culture that included this aspect to some, however limited, extent was the Community Framework Programme Culture 2000 (2000-2006). One of the goals, listed as the seventh one, was an “explicit recognition of culture as an economic factor and as a factor in social integration and citizenship” (Decision establishing Culture 2000 programme, 2000). The succeeding programme, Culture (2007-2013), does not include economic goals (Decision establishing Culture programme, 2006). The first study in this field commissioned by the Directorate General for Education and Culture was not done until in 2005-2006.

Culture on its own as an area of intervention of the European Regional Development Fund appears only in the financial perspective 2007-13. There are mentioned as being eligible for EU funding such projects as investment in culture, including protection, promotion and preservation of cultural heritage as well as what can be taken as development of cultural infrastructure in support of socio-economic development. All this is incorporated in the document (Regulation No 1080/2006 on ERDF). In the years 2000-06 the list of key intervention areas comprised culture only together with tourism with emphasis upon the latter. In the European Commission proposal for Cohesion Policy dated July 13, 2006 (Communication SEC (2006) 928) there are listed key issues for regional development. It is proposed that the emphasis should be put on accessibility and mobility, access to service amenities (including new technologies), natural and physical environment and culture. It is understood in the document that a cultural policy promoting a vibrant culture which is based on suitable facilities shall make cities more attractive to citizens, workers, businessmen and visitors and thereby strengthens its pride and identity.

Moreover, the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on a European agenda for culture in a globalizing world from May 10, 2007 (Communication SEC (2007) 570) entails among its objectives the promotion of culture as a catalyst for creativity and innovation in the context of the Lisbon Strategy for jobs and growth. President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso on the day of the adoption of the Communication said that “culture and creativity are important drivers for personal development, social cohesion and economic growth. Today’s strategy promoting intercultural understanding confirms culture’s place at the heart of our policies.”

The case of Kraków 2000 – the European City of Culture

Kraków was designated to be a European City of Culture in 2000 together with eight other cities: Avignon, Bergen, Bologna, Brussels, Helsinki, Prague, Reykjavik and Santiago de Compostela. Being a European City of Culture meant above all the obligation to prepare a cultural programme for the whole year, one which would bring people from the member states closer together. Equally it should promote the culture of the city and region and bring the cultural diversity of Europe to the fore – i.e. pursue the goal of the initiative (Resolution of the Ministers 1985). Among the aims of the European City of Culture (later called European Capital of Culture) initiative there had never been included aspects of economic or social development, even if some of the cities bearing the title took this opportunity to implement development strategies based on culture.

Kraków chose the following aims for the Festival 2000 to be implemented during that year (Program Kraków 2000 - 2001):

Clearly the economic aspect of cultural activities was not considered while preparing the program of the Kraków 2000 Festival. In the opinion of Bogusław Sonik (Interview with B. Sonik, 2007), director of the Kraków 2000 since the end of 1996, development through culture was not intended. It is clearly reflected in the name of the event – Festival Kraków 2000 (“festival” meaning to focus solely on the arts). This attitude was confirmed by D. Glondys (Interview with D. Glondys, 2007), a director of the cultural department of the municipality at the time of preparing the application for the title. The main idea behind the application was city promotion and marketing. In her opinion no one in Poland, and especially not at municipality level considered during the middle of the 90s the role of culture to be vital for the development process. Although the designation of the title of the European Capital of Culture concerned in the first place the city itself, the document of the city’s development strategy which was prepared by the municipality did not mention the designation for the title at all. Nevertheless, it has to be stressed that in the document cultural objectives as such were placed very high in the rank of strategic goals.

As mentioned before, the goals of the festival Kraków 2000 did not include economic ones nor was mentioned investment in the cultural infrastructure. However, Kraków had lacked for many years a large concert hall with more seats than the existing philharmonic hall (817 seats) or the largest theatre in Kraków (about 500 seats). The designation for the European City of Culture title could have been a great possibility to create such an establishment. However, both proposals, to build a concert hall with a seating capacity for 2,000 spectators as part of a long-planned Musical Theatre or a multipurpose hall (for the Festival events but also for sports events, congresses, exhibitions, fairs etc.) that could be constructed within 6 months, were not implemented. B. Sonik (Interview with B. Sonik, 2007) emphasizes that Kraków authorities tended not to think in economic terms when it came to culture. Investment in cultural infrastructure, especially building new ones, was rather rare. D. Glondys (Interview with D. Glondys, 2007) blames frequent political changes and personnel reshuffling in the central and regional authorities in both cases, while J. Purchla (Purchla 1998) sees the reason for the investment failure in the lack of enough emphasis on the architectural aspects or else in not emphasizing enough a need for investments in the cultural sphere in the Festival’s programme itself. The city’s activities in that sphere should have been more focused around the designation to be able to take promotional advantages of the title. Moreover, Purchla thinks (Interview with J. Purchla 2007) that instead of organizing a five-year cultural festival[1] the same financial means should have been used to create some long-lasting cultural infrastructure.

However, both investment projects mentioned above were included in the municipal strategic document on Kraków’s development (although without mentioning the designation for the European Capital of Culture) (Strategia rozwoju 1999: 1-9) It validates the words of D. Glondys (Interview with D. Glondys 2007), namely that there was no strategic plan to link all the domains of city life to the organization of the festival. It does not mean no investment was made – both in the cultural and in other sectors. However, they were all planned separately by the respective municipal departments responsible for each specific domain. There was no coherent plan in place to combine all the forces in order to prepare the city in all aspects to be a European City of Culture.

The same lack of coordination of action plans with regards to the designation of the title of the European City of Culture could be observed in the case of renovation of monuments. In 2000 over PLN 63,88 M was spent on restoration and construction works. More than 2/3 of the amount was spent on renovation works. They included renovation of the floor of the Wawel Castle’s courtyards and conservation of the gates to the St. Mary’s Church on the Main Market Square (Raport o stanie miasta 1999, 2000). In 1999, the year of final preparation for the European Capital of Culture festival, funds were directed to several projects, including adaptation of a former tram depot from 1900 to the needs of the newly established Museum of Municipal Engineering. The seat of the Cultural Information Centre was renovated as well. The public space in the city was equally refurbished – renovation works included illumination of the monuments in the Old Town, parts of the green belt and a park called the Planty situated where the old city walls used to be. Again, in the opinion of the interviewees quoted above, the renovation strategy of those years failed to include the European City of Culture event as motivation for any of these works.

Additional analysis of the number of visitors and tourists (visitors staying overnight) to Krakow in 2000 as well as of the income of the municipality in 2000 puts in doubt the success of the Kraków 2000 Festival as to impact upon the city’s development [2].

Structural funds and culture in Poland

A few years after hosting the European City of Culture in Kraków, Poland started its preparation in order to benefit from the European Structural Funds. [3] The Ministry of Culture participated fully in the preparation of the National Development Plan, a document that would become a base for negotiating the Community Support Framework with the European Commission. Taking the example of Portugal and Greece, the only countries in 2000-2006 that had a separate operational programme devoted to just culture and heritage, the Ministry tried to convince its governmental partners of the importance of culture in development and therefore of the need to give special priorities to culture in the operational programmes.

Consequently, the following programmes included the possibility of supporting cultural projects: Integrated Operational Programme for Regional Development, Sectoral Operational Programme “Restructuring and Modernisation of the Food Sector and Rural Development”, Sectoral Operational Programme ”Improvement of the Competitiveness of Enterprises”, Sectoral Operational Programme “Human Resources Development”. A variety of different types of projects was possible within these Programmes. They could range from constructing and renovating cultural infrastructures or restoring cultural heritage monuments to protecting and promoting rural heritage; it included as well development of art schools, upgrading of information society infrastructures as well as measures to support culture industries.

The most important Programme was the first one mentioned above. In the years 2004-2006 altogether 298 projects were supported to the amount of PLN 1,546 mln (EUR 387 mln). 94 of them (amounting to PLN 953 mln) were co-funded within Priority 1.4 Development of tourism and culture. It was the main priority and included culture directly.

Multiple examples of co-funded cultural projects can be given. It is said that many of them have been beneficial to a city’s or a region’s development. One of the projects supported was the revitalization of the Zamość Old Town to be found on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. It included conservation, renovation and modernization of buildings, while introducing new functions to the monument’s premises. It meant as well reconstruction of the fortress wall and refurbishment of the public space. The unique space of the Old Town allows now not only a cultural and artistic life to develop but also provides attractive leisure time for inhabitants and as well as for tourists while creating new perspectives for further economic growth (Financing culture 2006, 27).

Arguably, both central and regional authorities learned to appreciate the role of culture when it comes to furthering development. In the current financial perspective, 2007-13 culture is included in 6 sectorial operational programmes and 16 regional ones. One of the priorities of the Sectoral Programme “Infrastructure and Environment” is priority 12 “Culture and cultural heritage”. With a budget of EUR 576 mln it is solely dedicated to the domain of culture and cultural heritage. It offers the possibility of implementing large projects (most of them over EUR 5 mln) in the sphere of cultural infrastructure, while smaller cultural projects can be supported within one of the 16 regional operational programmes.

In order to help Polish cultural operators to benefit from the EU resources for culture (mainly the structural funds e.g. INTERREG III etc. but also the Community programme such as Culture 2000) the Ministry of Culture established a special programme called “Promesa” (or “promise” by the minister of culture). It offers financial resources to cover an organizer’s own co-financial contribution to projects which are supported by EU programmes and funds. The programme will be continued in the new financial perspective of 2007-13.

Conclusions

It is difficult to resist drawing a conclusion that a large cultural event like the Kraków 2000 Festival had a rather small impact upon the city’s economy. To some extent that is understandable as the programme for the event did not put any emphasis on economic goals. Rather the largest problem seems, however, to have been the lack of a coherent strategy at municipality level, a strategy which would focus on taking advantage of the event and not treat it as one-time cultural project with no long-term impact whatsoever. This attitude of not recognizing the importance of culture in terms of the city’s development could be found surprisingly enough in a city which claims to be the cultural and heritage capital of the country. It does not mean that culture was not supported at that time by the local and central authorities – it was; however, it was never done with the aim to foster development. The attitude of the municipality is clearly mirrored in the document of the city’s development strategy prepared in 1999 which did not mention the designation of the title of the European City of Culture. Generally speaking, one could venture a conclusion that in economical terms, Kraków 2000 cannot be considered an outstanding successful example of a European City of Culture. What was missing when implementing the European Capital of Culture year are such policy measures which could foster culture.

With regards to use of structural funds for culture in Poland in 2004-2006, the case seems to prove that once the value of culture has been learnt by officials, then such programmes and strategies are created which do support the implementation of cultural projects. The introduction of the “Promesa” programme was one of the policy measures very much needed to assure at least a modest rate of successful applications when attempting to secure European Union financial resources for culture.

Broadly speaking, there still seems to be a need for debate about policy measures in order to establish guidelines as to what can help to formulate and then to implement cultural strategies and projects with the aim besides promotion of culture, arts and heritage to learn to use them as well as important factors of urban and regional development.

References

Central Statistical Office, Regional Databases http://www.stat.gov.pl/bdren/bdrap.strona.indeks (viewed: September 2007).

Cogliandro G. (2001) European Cities of Culture for the Year 2000. A wealth of urban cultures for celebrating the turn of the century. Final report. Association of the European Cities of Culture of the year 2000 (typescript copy).

Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on a European agenda for culture in a globalizing world. SEC (2007) 570

Commission Staff Working Document. Annex to the Communication from the Commission to the Council and Parliament. Cohesion Policy and cities: the urban contribution to growth and jobs in the regions (COM(2006) 385 final)

Decision No 508/2000/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 February 2000 establishing the Culture 2000 programme.

Decision No 1903/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 establishing the Culture programme (2007-2013).

Finansowanie kultury z funduszy europejskich w Polsce w latach 2004-2006 [Financing culture from the European funds in Poland in 2004-2006]. Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego. Departament Strategii Kultury i Spraw Europejskich. Warszawa 2006

Garcia, B. (2005)De-constructing the City of Culture: The long term cultural legacies of Glasgow 1190 . Urban Studies, Vol. 42, no 5/6.

Garcia B. (2004) Urban Regeneration, arts programming and major events. Glasgow 1990, Sydney 2000 and Barcelona

Interview with Bogusław Sonik, director of Kraków 2000 (1996-2002), currently member of the European Parliament, on 13 October 2007.

Interview with Danuta Glondys, former director of the culture department in the municipality, currently a director of the Villa Decius Association, on 5 September 2007.

Interview with prof. Jacek Purchla, coordinator of the European Cultural Month in Kraków 1992 (1992), currently a director of the International Cultural Centre in Kraków, on 28 September 2007.

Kraków 2000 Festival Office web archive, http://www.biurofestiwalowe.pl/emk_a.html (viewed: September 2007).

Kraków 2000 Festival Office webpage http://www.biurofestiwalowe.pl/index_k2000.html (viewed: September 2007).

Owen K. A. (2002) The Sydney 2000 Olympics and urban entrepreneurialism: local variations in urban governance. Australian Geographical Studies, 40(3).

Purchla J. (1998) Uwagi do projektów zainicjowanych i przedstawionych do oceny przez Biuro Festiwalowe Kraków 2000 [Remarks on the projects initiated and presented by Kraków 2000 Festival Office], (a note to the municipality).

Mooney G. (2004) Cultural policy as urban transformation? Critical reflections on Glasgow, the European City of Culture in 1990. Local Economy, 19:4, 327–340.

Murzyn A. M. (2002) Culture and urban revitalization. The case of Bilbao. In Yearly 2002, International Cultural Centre, Kraków.

Program Kraków 2000 Europejskie Miasto Kultury. Raport końcowy [Programme of the European City of Culture Kraków, Final Report] (2001). Biuro Kraków 2000, Kraków (typescript copy).

Raport o stanie miasta 1991-2005. [Report on the city’s condition 1991-2005], http://www.krakow.pl/gospodarka/ (viewed: September 2007).

Regulation (EC) No 1080/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 July 2006 on the European Regional Development Fund and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1783/1999.

Resolution of the Ministers responsible for Cultural Affairs, meeting within the Council, of 13 June 1985, concerning the annual event 'European City of Culture' (85/C 153/02).

(1999) Strategia rozwoju Krakowa [Strategy for Kraków’s development], Zarząd Miasta Krakowa, Kraków.

Website on structural funds in Poland www.funduszestructuralne.gov.pl

Footnotes:

[1] When the title was received in 1995, the municipality decided to lengthen the celebration by preparing the festival events in all years preceding 2000.

[2] A broader analysis of the impact of the European City of Culture title on Kraków was presented by the author during a conference “Culture and the City” in November 2007 in Karlskrona, Sweden. Proceedings of the conference are planned to be published in 2008.

[3] Poland accessed the EU in 2004.

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