From Recovery 5.6 billion for culture. Franceschini: "after Covid there will be great renaissance."

Culture Minister Dario Franceschini spoke a short while ago at a joint hearing of the culture committees of the House and Senate to outline the Ministry of Culture’s programmatic lines (to be reported on in a subsequent article) and the contents of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. At the moment, for Franceschini, the ministry’s priority is to cope with the Covid emergency for “the whole culture sector,” said the minister, “which is one of the hardest hit by the crisis, both in terms of length on closures and the impact on structures.” The March 27 opening for cinemas and theaters in the yellow zones at the moment, Franceschini let it be known, will apply only to Sardinia (all the rest of Italy in fact is in the orange or red zones), unless there are changes: the crisis, according to the minister, will be prolonged, and it will therefore be necessary, in his opinion, to continue with a policy of support to help workers and institutions in the sector overcome the unfavorable moment.

“The recovery,” said Dario Franceschini, “will be there, indeed I want to say this with a vein of optimism at a time when optimism is a rare commodity: I am convinced that as soon as the crisis is over in the world of culture there will be a sort of Renaissance, a moment of great desire for the recovery of cultural consumption. What has happened in the book sector denotes that, even with the changes that have occurred so harshly and dramatically in our individual lives and in the collective life of society, there will probably be a push toward the search for new consumption, and I believe that there is a great room for growth for culture, and for Italian culture in particular, but first we will have to finish crossing the desert, and we have to support workers and businesses.”

As for measures for workers, in the support decree that the government will approve in a few days Franceschini called for refinancing measures to help workers in the sector, particularly for nonpermanent workers, seasonal workers, and intermittent workers. The measures, according to Franceschini, should continue even during partial reopenings (inflows will in fact be very small in the early stages). Then in the decree should be the refinancing of the emergency funds that have so far provided about 4 billion, part of which has been dedicated, covering the needs of many sectors, even the most traditionally neglected.

Culture in the Recovery Fund

Franceschini at the hearing also explained how Next Generation EU funds (the so-called Recovery Fund) will be invested in the culture sector. At present, the latest draft of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (the plan for allocating funds) allocates 5.6 billion for culture. Here are the specific items in which the resources will be invested.

Strategic Plan of Major Cultural Attractions. These will be major interventions, located in almost all Italian regions, on large containers (such as the Porto Vecchio in Trieste, the Arsenal in Venice, the Po River Park in Turin, the European Library of Information in Milan, the Genoese Forts System, the urban regeneration of the Polo Museale in Florence): in all, there will be 12 interventions) that start with the idea of redeveloping some urban areas as potential cultural and tourist attractors. Probably, the minister let it be known following the debate, the Franchi Stadium in Florence will also be included in the list, which, being a public structure on which there will be no private intervention, may undergo restoration with public resources: at the moment the Franchi is not part of the project, but at the urging of some parliamentarians there may be the possibility of its inclusion. There will also be a project entitled Recovery Art: the historical-artistic heritage is seriously threatened by natural disasters, and the only highly specialized place for their recovery, Franceschini has let it be known, is the Depot of Santo Chiodo in Spoleto, and this project will be used to identify places on the national territory to be restored and permanently allocated as a shelter for works of art following natural disasters.

Digital Platforms and Strategies for Access to Cultural Heritage. Resources in the area of overall digitization of offices. In addition, there will also be investments in the implementation of the Digital Library project.

Accessibility to Places of Culture and Cultural Heritage. 300 million to eliminate architectural barriers and improve accessibility to cultural sites.

Minor sites and rural and suburban areas. Two areas of intervention are planned, the national boroughs plan and rural heritage. That of the villages, Franceschini said, is a theme that Parliament has urged several times: it is a matter of intervening not on the villages that already have the capacity to attract tourists or that have had important redevelopments on the historical heritage, but on those hundreds of small villages, mainly along the Apennine ridge, often uninhabited or sparsely inhabited, which according to the minister have great potential, and on which there will be interventions on the one hand for the recovery of the historical heritage and on the other for digitization and broadband development. These will therefore be interventions, the minister said, that will enable the hamlets to become attractive again with respect to a society that has profoundly changed and in which it will no longer be impossible to work in a hamlet if you have the structural and digital conditions that will allow you to do so. As for the rural historical heritage, this will involve interventions on the thousands of abandoned and destroyed farmhouses scattered throughout the country (“We are thinking,” the minister said, “about a specific incentive for the protection and recovery of rural construction, which moreover in our country is of great quality. Conversely, within a few years, if no action is taken this heritage will be largely lost permanently.”).

Parks, gardens, urban peripheries and identity places. Interventions to recover these areas.

Seismic safety of places of worship. A plan for restorations of churches from the Interior Ministry’s Worship Buildings Fund. This will be a major preventive earthquake-proofing operation that will last over the years.

Creative Cultural Industries. Investment for the development of film industries and the Cinecittà project. “The audiovisual market,” Franceschini said, “in the world is increasing enormously, and particularly in Italy, both because of the historical attractiveness of our country and because we introduced a tax credit, probably the most competitive in Europe, which was increased in 2020 as an emergency measure and which we decided in the budget law to leave unchanged in 2021. The intersection of these two factors will lead to a huge focus of the international market and the possibility of growth in the domestic market of the audiovisual sector, which will be one of the driving sectors of the country’s development in the coming years (if I shoot a film in Italy I show the image of Italy in the world and it serves as advertising better than 100 promotional spots) and then because Cinecittà, which is back entirely public, is a model in the world. There will be a big investment in the sector.”

Supporting cultural operators in the green and digital transition.

From Recovery 5.6 billion for culture. Franceschini: "after Covid there will be great renaissance."

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