Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Hearing today in the Senate Culture Committee

Milan, March 4 2021 – Satisfaction with the opening of museums on holidays and the attention paid to the reopening of entertainment venues but the need for a long-term strategy to guarantee its sustainability; establishment of a permanent consultative table; a law for culture and entertainment workers; planning and certainty on refreshments and a "culture fund" for cities. These are some of the requests formulated by the culture councilors of the most important Italian cities during today's meeting in the Senate Culture Committee, chaired by Riccardo Nencini.

Present were the culture councilors of Bari, Bologna, Cagliari, Florence, Genoa, Milan, Naples, Rome, Turin, Venice, cities which, together with Palermo and Ancona, have for a year constituted an informal committee to deal in a coordinated manner with the many emergencies. The cities of Trieste and Catania were also heard in the commission.

The councilors expressed their satisfaction with the extension of the opening of the museums also on public holidays and with the priority attention finally placed on the need to reopen the entertainment venues, but they asked for the guarantee of a long-term strategy with a single protocol throughout Italy, unless there are particularly serious health situations, so as to avoid the 'stop and go' of recent months.

According to the councillors, there is also an urgent need for an ad hoc law for workers in the sector: very varied workers, very often underpaid, 'invisible' and poorly protected, who have been living in the deepest uncertainty for a year.

To this must be added guarantees on refreshments and a 'culture fund' for the capital cities in addition to the other funds for the cities provided by the Government: the large Italian cities have in fact suffered from the closure of cultural and entertainment activities as well as the collapse of tourism and they now absolutely need specific transfers for the post-pandemic rebirth.

Finally, the councilors reiterated their willingness to set up a permanent discussion table between the ministry, competent commissions and local authorities so as to guarantee constant dialogue with the cities, true 'antennas' of complex and fragile cultural ecosystems and spokespersons for local needs .