The regulations for the Cultural Promotion Fund (FFC) were published this Wednesday, the 15th, in Diário da República and establish a set of rules for access to public funds for culture, which amount to around 40 million euros per year. The ordinance of the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports provides eligibility criteria for beneficiaries and projects, selection criteria, the creation of an application evaluation committee and an electronic platform from which all applications must be submitted.
This platform, according to the ordinance, will have to be operational within one year. Until it is operational, applications will be submitted “through the electronic address, or electronic form, provided for in the respective AAC [aviso para apresentação de candidaturas]”, the concierge reads.
The jury of the first AAC opened after the publication of this ordinance will be “made up of five elements appointed by the FFC administrative board”.
The commission that will evaluate the applications will be made up of five members appointed by Government order, after consultation with the FFC. You will have 30 days to carry out the analysis, counting from the end of the deadline for submitting an application stated in the Notice. But the commission will not have the final say.
“Once the assessment is completed, the Commission deliberates and draws up minutes with the reasons, classification and proposal for the amount of support to be granted, which It has the nature of a proposal, without external effectiveness, being sent to the FFC administrative council, the competent body for the final decision.”
“For the first time, all support will be preceded by a competition, evaluated by independent and publicly scrutinizable juries”announces the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports in a statement.
The Government argues that “this measure represents a structural change in the way support is allocated, placing merit and impartiality at the center of decisions”.
“From now on, merit replaces the logic of favor. Impartiality replaces discretion”says minister Margarida Balseiro Lopes, quoted in the press release.
For the Government, the absence of clear rules for the allocation of support “compromised the trust of cultural agents and weakened the recognition of artistic merit”.
The FFC regulation was announced by the minister at the end of August. This is after the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) released a report on the activity of the Cultural Promotion Fund in the three-year period 2020-2022, in which, according to the Lusa agency, it points out several flaws in the functioning of the Fund, including the absence of annual or multi-annual plans, the lack of evaluation of the results of public subsidies and differences in treatment “between older and more recent beneficiaries”. Between 2020 and 2022, support worth 123.7 million euros was granted by the FCC.