European finances and Hungarian museums

Developing museums in Hungary from EU financing

MúzeumCafé 33.

Over 35 billion forints was invested in Hungarian museums in the past five years, a major part being spent on restoring listed buildings. Nevertheless, several museums have been modernized, and display storerooms, children’s playrooms and new exhibition venues have been built. In addition, there are finances that can be applied for directly from Brussels: most major museums have succeeded in implementing museum education projects from EU resources. However, sustainability is a problem. Since the economic crisis has halted the museum boom, it will not be easy to fulfil the number of visitors pledged for the developments. For example, in museum education schools and funding bodies must be persuaded to purchase programmes developed for them by applying for new EU grants. Generally, culture is seen as a national matter in the EU, therefore financial support cannot be used directly for many purposes. Yet, given the underdeveloped infrastructure of museums, it was necessary to acquire EU funds and find ways for projects assisting public collections to be included in the tenders. The cultural field was linked to education in Hungarian tenders. It had its positive and negative aspects. The latter meant that since education was always in a stronger position it gained a far larger slice of the finances and that intensified when the two ministries merged in 2006. The ministry tried to coordinate needs and possibilities. It was not easy since the EU did not necessarily focus on issues which were most burning for public collections in Hungary. Realising the need to approach the existing financial resources in a concerted manner took some time. For example, a permanent exhibition could be renewed with the Alfa Project financed by the ministry, while EU funds opened opportunities for developing museum education.