Restoration backlog on state houses: No money from Berlin for ailing museums of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation – Berlin

There is an urgent need to renovate the state museums and libraries owned by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK). The museum complex in Dahlem, the house of the State Library on Potsdamer Strasse, the Museum of Applied Arts, the Institute for Music Research, the New Museum on Museum Island, but also the headquarters of the main administration, the Villa von der Heydt, and the Secret Prussian State Archive are particularly ailing in Dahlem.

The federal government plans to spend around 250 million euros over the next ten years on building maintenance and repairs to all properties belonging to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. The state of Berlin actually has to cover 25 percent of the costs, almost 63 million euros, but the Senate Department for Culture has so far refused.

In the federal budget for 2021, 11.3 million euros are initially earmarked for reducing the renovation backlog. That is the federal share of 75 percent, the rest would have to be contributed by the state of Berlin. Now the Federal Ministry of Finance informed the Bundestag’s budget committee on Thursday that Berlin would not pay. The letter is available to the Tagesspiegel.

The State Minister for Culture and Media Monika Grütters (CDU), a Berlin deputy, still wants to pay out the federal portion – although according to the financing agreement, as the accompanying letter from Grütters says, the federal funds could not actually be used in this case.

Grütters justified her plan by stating that the traffic jam in the maintenance of the foundation must urgently be dismantled and must therefore start as soon as possible. Both the Federal Audit Office and the Budget Committee themselves would have determined that.

“This is a statement interpreted quite wildly by the federal government”

According to the Grütters letter, the Berlin State Secretary for Culture Torsten Wöhlert announced on March 21 that Berlin could not co-finance the special program – not this year and not in the following years either. According to the letter, Wöhlert is said to have justified this with a lack of financial leeway in the state budget.[Wenn Sie alle aktuellen Nachrichten live auf Ihr Handy haben wollen, empfehlen wir Ihnen unsere App, die Sie hier für Apple- und Android-Geräte herunterladen können.]

The cultural administration rejects this representation in response to a Tagesspiegel request. “That is a statement interpreted quite wildly by the federal government,” said Daniel Bartsch, spokesman for the cultural administration.

“It should be remembered that the state has drawn up a double budget 2020/2021 and at the time the state of Berlin was not aware of the ‘Special Construction Maintenance Program for the SPK’ and could therefore not be included in budget planning,” said Bartsch. The Senate Department for Culture is in talks with Grütters. “The renovation backlog is real and a solution is needed.”

The foundation as a whole is in need of reform. At the beginning of July 2020, an expert opinion from the Science Council commissioned by Grütters came to the conclusion that it was “overwhelmed” and “dysfunctional”. Since then, a reform commission, in which Berlin is also involved, has been debating the future of the foundation – breaking it up is also possible.

Culture spokesman Bartsch indicates that these reforms could also lead to changes in the financing structure. “It is debated how the SPK can be structurally strengthened. This applies to the financing as well as the burden sharing. ”When asked whether Berlin could withdraw completely from the financing in the coming years, the Senate Department for Culture did not answer.