2023-11-14 20:59:21
This is a hard blow for the book industry in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation!
In her preliminary draft budget, the Minister of Culture Bénédicte Linard did not grant any new funding to the book sector! Not even to compensate for inflation.
This endangers a sector already shaken by the post-covid crisis.
And yet, the signing last September of a sector contract for the entire book sector raised a lot of hope. A unique contract of its kind in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.
This contract, signed on September 23, 2022, was to make it possible to finance actions already in progress, such as, for example, the “Do you read Belgian” operation or collective distribution in bookstores for small independent publishers.
This is not called into question. But by not granting any increase for this draft budget for next year, the minister seems to be making an regarding-face!
Huge disappointment
However, she was committed to supporting the sector in its initiatives.
But when reading the preliminary draft budget for 2024, Geoffroy Wolters, the coordinator of Pilen, the inter-professional association which brings together authors, publishers and booksellers, almost choked…
“The budget was 4.5 million euros in 2023 and in the 2024 version it is not changed. No increase! Not even to keep up with inflation which is close to 15%! This budget represents 0.4% of the total cultural allocation while we account for 15% of employment in this sector. This undermines all the future support actions we had imagined. Actions that are nevertheless very necessary, such as for example, assistance with the computerization of booksellers, collective distribution of small publishers in bookstores or assistance with the promotion of Belgian books abroad“.
The entire industry is suffering.
“We experienced a euphoric period with the Covid crisis which saw our sales increase significantly for two years. But since then, the figures have fallen significantly: between 5 and 10%. And generally speaking, we read less in schools, for example,” notes Geoffroy Wolters.
And he understands the absence of books in the Culture budget all the less since at the same time, the minister grants an additional €35 million to the Performing Arts, which goes from €110 million to €145 million.
“For a book sector recognized as essential during the health crisis, it seems that everything this sector carries no longer matters.“, reacts Geoffroy Wolters.
An unacceptable disparity for Frederic Young general delegate of the SCAM (Civil Society of Multimedia Authors):
“In the field of comics, public subsidies to support creation amount to 300,000 euros per year.
That’s the budget of a single theater company! Comic book authors obtain grants of 2 to 3,000 euros for creations that require months of work.
For all French-speaking Belgian literature, which is still very recognized abroad with people like Isabelle Wery, Caroline Lamarche, Thomas Gunzig or Adeline Dieudonné of whom we are so proud in Belgium, well for all that, the total budget, it’s 500,000 euros. There is a real precariousness of French-speaking Belgian authors which was demonstrated by a study that Scam carried out among 500 of them. A study which was presented by the minister herself! And following that, there is no policy or financial support that follows! It’s incomprehensible.”
On our own funds
On the booksellers’ side, bitterness also prevails. Catherine Mangez, vice-president of the Association of Independent Booksellers, deplores what looks like a kind of abandonment:
“In this absence of refinancing, there is an important symbolic dimension: a clear disinvestment by public authorities in one of the most accessible arts, particularly for young people. And which embraces very different genres from manga to novels to textbooks and many other types of books.
On the other hand, we booksellers are very involved in events around books: meetings with authors, events with school groups, participation in campaigns aimed at the general public. And the Ministry of Culture encourages us to increase the number of these events which are so successful that the funds planned for the whole year have already been exhausted. If we continue, it will be on our own funds!”
Big problems ahead
And in a joint press release, writers, editors, booksellers and other professionals point out a whole series of very concrete problems: disparities between the budgets allocated respectively to the different sectors of culture which are not corrected and worse which will even be aggravated.
Geoffroy Wolters makes this bitter observation:
“Many quality projects aimed at giving concrete content to the objectives set out in the “Book Sector Contract” will therefore be refused without explaining how they would be less legitimate. A major reform of the tax and social regime for authors is underway and should justify a specific policy, unfortunately completely ignored.
And he wishes: “recall the hopes raised by the sector contract, which seems to have been totally neglected during the preparation of this discriminatory and unbalanced budget.“
Review your copy
For its part, the office of Minister Bénédicte Linard reaffirmed that:
“The book is supported transversally via the sector contract, support for bookstores, and refinancing has been granted at several points during the legislature.“.
The minister, in a press release, nevertheless wishes to reassure the book sector: “this will not prevent one-off support via other mechanisms, in the continuity of the measures and the objective of a culture close to the people. Possible solutions in this regard are currently being analyzed, and the minister’s office is obviously in contact with the operators concerned..”
Then the Pilen asks: “that the government of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, and the PS/MR/Ecolo majority which supports it, sheds light on our future and adapts its draft 2024 budget decree to respond more fairly to the cultural needs of all professionals and public in the literature and book sector.”
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