“City parties” have cost taxpayers millions: – We can’t afford this kind of elitist shit

Politics, culture and food

The dream of Mariager’s own public meeting came in 2019 in the wake of Bornholm, Hirtshals and Nykøbing Mors having their own.

Mariager must be able to do the same, because through the Pentecostal movement, the city has experience with annual gatherings where 3-4000 people spend the night.

The then radical city council member Casper Hedegaard was among the masterminds behind the European People’s Meeting.

The countries were to meet about society, politics, culture and the culinary, and the dream was that up to 30,000 participants from all over Europe, including top politicians from Brussels, should gather in Mariager.

Casper Hedegaard, former radical city council member, was among the ideas behind the European People’s Meeting. Archive photo: Bente Poder

Although mayor Mogens Jespersen (V) supported the idea, he made it clear that the municipality had neither money nor resources to throw into the project.

However, that message did not hold.

Two years later, when the project had taken shape and a real secretariat had been set up with Stine Bosse as chairman of the board, the municipality had already given over a million kroner to the initial phases.

And it was far from the last time the municipality had to pick up the slack.

Financial failure

In August 2022, Mariager finally hosted the “Political Festival of Europe” – which, as the name also suggests, was a European public meeting where everything took place in English.

Despite almost 300 events, over 200 speakers from more than 30 countries and more than 10,000 unique visitors, the international public meeting was far from a financial success.

Stine Bosse (M) was the association’s first chairman of the board. She chose to withdraw after the first public meeting was held in 2022. Archive photo: Bente Poder

Already after the first festival it was clear – that the economy did not match the ambitions.

The result for 1 January to 31 October 2022 was a deficit of just over 2.5 million kroner, and the city council politicians had to come to the rescue of the association.

Before the event, the association had received a lot of money in operating grants, which had to be repaid. But the city council was forced to write off four million of that debt.

At the same time, they gave the association a new drawing right of nearly three million kroner, so that a new public meeting could be held.

Completely new direction

One thing was clear, however – the festival could not continue in the same way again.

Because it was not enough that the people’s meeting could not come together financially, the fact that it was an international people’s meeting in English was also a challenge.

Mayor Mogens Jespersen remembers that if 50 people sat for a debate, half were gone after 15 minutes.

They couldn’t keep up.

– I myself was one of those who said that under no circumstances would I participate in driving like that again. It must be in Danish for Danes. If there is someone who doesn’t understand Danish, we have to make sure that someone stands next to them and tells them what it’s all about.

Mayor Mogens Jespersen (V) believes that the Danes’ lack of interest in Europe and the EU made it difficult to create a sustainable arrangement. Archive photo: Nicolas Cho Meier

Business life and residence

The people’s meeting had to have a new direction, and both the chairman of the board and the director stopped.

In came the former Member of Parliament Jens Rohde as director, who now had to ensure that it was no longer Europe that was going to Mariager – but Mariager that was going to Europe.

In addition to an annual public meeting, the association should also help the business community to create networks and access to the decision-makers, and then the public meeting should support the municipality’s strategies for settlement and business investments, the director explained at the time.

The People’s Assembly was also moved, so that 2023 was skipped, and then, in return, a European People’s Assembly was held in May 2024.

Right in the middle of the European Parliament elections.

According to the association behind, the first European public meeting in 2022 had more than 10,000 unique visitors. Archive photo: Bente Poder

“Isolated incidents” brought down the economy

The new public meeting was visited by top Danish politicians, a large number of media and somewhere between 8,000 and a maximum of 10,000 guests over the three days.

Still, the money was not enough.

The association behind it had used all the new drawing rights with the municipality and ended up with a deficit.

The final result for the last year was a deficit of just over half a million kroner.

In an email to the city council, board chairman Franz Cuculiza wrote:

“In the last six weeks leading up to the general meeting, we went from believing in a surplus to realizing a deficit. This is due to a few isolated incidents in the last weeks before the public meeting!”

But the politicians had lost patience.

They had said in advance that if the public meeting could not generate a profit, they would withdraw the support going forward.

Nevertheless, a majority of the city council decided to write off the last debt and in addition give half a million kroner in grants, so that the association could close down without debt and unpaid bills.

The European adventure was over.

An adventure that has cost Mariagerfjord Municipality 8.6 million kroner in total.

Financial support for the European People’s Assembly

• The European People’s Meeting in Mariager has received a lot of financial support over the years.
• 0.5 million DKK in Budget 2020 for a preliminary project regarding an EU plebiscite.
• 0.75 million DKK as a subsidy in August 2020 to support the public meeting.
• 0.5 million DKK in August 2021 as an extraordinary operating subsidy with repayment requirements. That debt was written off again in November 2022.
• 4 million DKK as an extraordinary operating subsidy in November 2021 with a demand for repayment after the festival is held in 2022. Of this, DKK 3.5 million was DKK written off again in November 2022.
• In addition, the “Political Festival of Europe” sought money from the municipality in the spring of 2022 for the purchase of street performance. They got DKK 25,000 from the politicians, even though the administration recommended they refused. The municipality had already planned a lot of entertainment.
• 2.797 million DKK in drawing rights was granted in November 2022 so that a new public meeting could be held. That debt was written off again in September 2024.
• DKK 552,000 as a final subsidy to help pay the last bills, so you ended up in the black. The politicians gave it in September 2024.
• In total, the European public meetings have thus received DKK 8,624,000 in support from Mariagerfjord Municipality.
• In addition, the association has also received support from the North Jutland Region as well as a number of companies and foundations.

Two bad city parties

In the city council, however, there was one politician who did not want to help send more money, Malene Ingwersen (UP).

In fact, she has been against the public meeting from the start.

– I don’t think it is part of the core task. When we are dismantling the welfare state, we cannot afford this kind of elitist shit. After all, it is about top politicians who meet and play political games together.

– It is not beneficial for the citizens of the municipality. It is not something that adds value to our citizens.

– In relation to getting some political celebrities, you probably couldn’t have done better. And therefore you also have to recognize that it cannot run around, says Malene Ingwersen (UP). Archive photo: Martin Damgård

Although the municipality had political representation on the board and supported the public meeting for a number of years, Malene Ingwersen does not believe that it was the municipality’s task to ensure that it shut down without unpaid bills.

She tried to experience the public meeting herself earlier this year, when a meeting of the labor market and education committee was moved to Mariager on the first day of the public meeting.

But when the committee wanted to go out and drink a beer together at the public meeting after the committee meeting, it wasn’t like that, she remembers.

– It was half past seven on Thursday, and there was nothing to do. I did not find an eye.

– None of us in the committee had any idea what was going on. There wasn’t even a tent with beer. There was nothing, she remembers.

– It was two very bad city parties that you got for nine million kroner.

Without support – no public meeting

Franz Cuculiza, who is former chairman of the board of Europahus Mariager, the association behind the public meeting, believes on the other hand that the association succeeded in creating a good public meeting that gave good branding value for the city and the municipality.

He also believes that the public meeting had the potential to live on for many years, but has to state that this kind of public meeting cannot survive without municipal support. Because if there is no municipal support, it is next to impossible to get support from foundations or get on the Finance Act.

– I think it is important to point out that we on the board respect the fact that it is Mariagerfjord Municipality that prioritizes the money. And when they don’t want to prioritize them for a festival but for other purposes, we respect that.

The board also believed that this year’s public meeting would yield a profit – but in the last weeks up to they were hit by a number of expenses they had not taken into account.

Franz Cuculiza, who is currently managing director at Aage Vestergaard Larsen, took over the chairmanship of Europahus Mariager after Stine Bosse quit. Press photo: Jacob Lerche/Aage Vestergaard Larsen

Expensive items

The first financial problem that Franz Cuculiza mentions was failing ticket sales for two Mr. Weyse shows.

In addition, they did not expect that they themselves would have to be responsible for the technical installation of toilets and bathing conditions, just as they also decided not to demand payment from the participating national parties. On that item alone, they had budgeted over DKK 100,000 in revenue.

And finally, they had not calculated that there would be 24-hour guards in the area.

– Overall, it gave us a deficit instead of a profit.

The right priority?

In the mayor’s office, Mogens Jespersen (V) thinks it was a really good European public meeting, but explains that the municipality could not continue to post money in the project, as the municipal finances are today.

The municipality’s liquidity has fallen by more than DKK 200 million. DKK in two years.

However, the mayor probably believes that the municipality has gotten something out of the nearly nine million kroner that the public meetings ended up costing the municipality.

– If we ask the traders in Mariager, they couldn’t keep their arms down. In addition, we also think about the reputation and the press coverage there was.

– It is very difficult to measure this sort of thing on the bottom line. But I can see that over the past two years there have been over 200 new citizens in Mariager, and this has never been seen before.

– Then you can say that it is because it has been built. Yes, but Mariager has also been very positive in all media. And it could well be that it was this kind of thing that makes people look at whether it is in Mariager that they are going to settle.

The two European plebiscites were held in 2022 and 2024 respectively. Archive photo: Bente Poder

Majority behind support

Since the start of the project, the two public meetings have cost the municipality DKK 8.6 million, but it cannot be done so simply, the mayor believes.

– There are also some who have asked me if we could not have used that money on better conditions for the elderly, and we could easily do that. But there are different boxes, and we didn’t cut corners on the elderly or the children to make this.

– It is a strategy that was created to get more focus on Mariagerfjord Municipality. Unfortunately, it could not come together financially, because if it could, we would of course have backed them again.

It’s easy to be backward, but has it been the right priority?

– You can always say that afterwards. But there were 28 of us who believed that this was a priority we wanted to try. It’s easier, like Malene Ingwersen, to say, you’ve been against it from the start, but you can turn off all the lights, close all the shops, close all the businesses, and then things go really well for a few years, but then we die.

2024-11-18 05:07:00
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How can municipalities balance financial priorities with community events?

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⁤ ‍ ⁤ Mogens Jespersen⁢ (V), ⁢the mayor, acknowledges the positive ‌impact of the public meetings on ⁢the local community‌ and economy. Press ​photo: Jacob Lerche/Aage Vestergaard Larsen