Music support put to the test in the canton of Basel-Stadt

The text of the unformulated initiative, which was submitted with 4098 valid signatures, is as follows:

"The Canton of Basel-Stadt provides public support for music, taking into account the diverse interests and needs of today's society. As a result, the Canton of Basel-Stadt will in future also encourage the independent music scene to a greater extent with appropriate support, in addition to the institutions, and thereby ensure a diverse range of music on offer. To this end, the following regulations will be implemented within four years of the initiative's acceptance:

1. The canton of Basel-Stadt supports the independent music scene each year with at least one third of the total music support budget. This includes: a) Contributions for independent musicians; b) Contributions to support programs, venues and structures.
2. The canton of Basel-Stadt is adapting its support structures accordingly and standardizing the allocation processes for the entire independent music scene."

Problematic consequences

What at first glance seems like a nice idea - to provide appropriate support not only for classical music, but also for electronic music, hip-hop, jazz, pop and rock - would have consequences that the initiators either didn't consider or didn't want to see: in particular, the Basel Symphony Orchestra OSB (which is publicly funded) and the Basel Theater, to which the OSB provides a significant part of its services, would no longer be able, in the event of a 30% reduction in subsidies, to continue their performance mandate in its current form. One of the initiators, Roberto Barbotti, declared in an interview with the Basler Zeitung: "Nobody said that funding for classical music would be cut if the initiative were accepted. That's scaremongering." It's not clear how this would square with the fact that the cantonal government has refused to increase the culture budget. In the same interview, rapper La Nefera condescendingly says: "Even if only a few people listen to classical music, I think it's important to support it." In its 2018/19 season, the Basel Symphony Orchestra alone attracted around 125,000 listeners! Both the BSO and the Basel Chamber Orchestra regularly play to packed houses. One fact also goes unmentioned: during an OSB season, for example, the orchestra employs, in addition to its 100 or so permanent members, some 170 to 180 freelance musicians for the most diverse programs. The latter provide a total of between 3,000 and 3,500 services, and cost between CHF 900,000 and 1.2 million (depending on the season). We can therefore deduce that the share designated as support for institutions also contains substantial resources from which independent musicians benefit. Quite apart from the fact that the canton of Basel-Stadt already has the highest per capita expenditure on culture in Switzerland, the fact that the initiators are not explicitly demanding an increase in the culture budget is linked to the fact that, through the implementation of the "tipping initiative" accepted in 2020, measures have already been taken that considerably improve the conditions for the independent music scene in the canton of Basel-Stadt and counterbalance the historical imbalance of genres. The new law, which was approved by the cantonal government in March 2007, provides for a gradual increase in the culture budget over the years 2022 to 2024, to a total of CHF 3.15 million, with the aim of strengthening youth and alternative culture in all areas.

Government and Grand Council reject initiative

As the government points out in its 2023 report, the music scene and its offerings are supported by several sources of public funding, in all fields from classical and amateur choral music to contemporary, improvised and popular music. In his opinion, "implementing the initiative in accordance with its text would jeopardize the stability of cultural institutions with a strong identity and Basel's reputation as a city of culture, lead to permanent staff redundancies and reduce mandates and performance opportunities for independent musicians".

On the recommendation of its Education and Culture Committee, the Grand Council rejected the initiative in June 2024. The elaboration of a counter-proposal, which would have included an improvement in the social security of cultural workers, failed, as the demands of the initiative did not prove concrete enough to realize an alternative proposal. In an interview in the Basler Zeitung, Franziskus Theurillat, Managing Director of the OSB, explains that there had been discussions with the initiators before the initiative was launched, and that they might have been supported, but that it would apparently not only be a question of obtaining subsidies, but also of fundamentally questioning, for ideological reasons, the very system of subsidies.

An initiative that divides the cultural landscape

The "Taking Care of Basel's City of Culture" committee, which is campaigning to reject the initiative and includes USDAM Central Secretary Beat Santschi, comments: "The initiative is populist and marked by envy and jealousy. It creates a gulf in our cultural landscape. The initiative calls for additional support for a certain group of 'independent' cultural players, and knowingly accepts that this should be at the expense of 'institutional' cultural creation. This preferential treatment is unfair, divisive and divisive for the various players in the cultural city of Basel. [...] The initiative seeks to promote music unilaterally. This is not in keeping with the times. Today, cultural promotion is interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral. We want to encourage innovative cooperation and overcome divisions, whereas the initiative has the effect of pitting different genres, disciplines, forms of cultural expression and institutions against each other." Franziskus Theurillat aptly summed up the situation before the vote: "I can only support the concern for balanced promotion that lies at the heart of the initiative. And diversity too, in any case. That's what's misleading. I have mixed feelings: I can support the cause, but not the initiative in its current form."

Link to the website of the initiative's opponents (in German only)