Objectives and budget

Objectives

The objectives of national cultural policy include safeguarding freedom of expression and creating genuine opportunities for everyone to make use of that freedom; taking action to enable everyone to participate in cultural life, to experience culture and to engage in creative activities of their own; promoting cultural diversity, artistic renewal and quality, thus counteracting the negative effects of commercialism; enabling culture to act as a dynamic, challenging and independent force in society; preserving and making use of our cultural heritage; promoting the thirst for learning, and promoting international cultural exchange and meetings between different cultures in the country.

The Riksdag has also adopted objectives for specific activities within the policy area, such as the objectives for state archives that have been included in Section 3 of the Archives Act (1990:782) (Govt. Bill 1989/90:72, Committee Report 1989/90:KrU29, Parliamentary Communication 1989/90:307), objectives for central government work concerning architecture, form and design (Govt. Bill 1997/98:117, Committee Report 1997/98:KrU14, Parliamentary Communication 1997/98:225), objectives for state funding to religious communities, included in Section 2 of the Act on Support to Religious Communities (1999:932) (Govt. Bill 1998/99:124, Committee Report 1999/2000:KU5, Parliamentary Communication 1999/2000:45), and objectives for work with the cultural environment (Govt. Bill 1998/99:114, Committee Report 1999/2000:KrU7, Parliamentary Communication 1999/2000:196).

The 2007 Budget

About SEK 6104 million has been allocated to the cultural policy area for 2007.

Cultural policy comprises issues related to theatre, dance and music; libraries, literature, reading and language; the visual arts; architecture, form and design; film; conditions for artists; archives; cultural environments; museums and exhibitions; religious communities; research in the field of culture, and activities that extend over several artistic areas. In the 1996 resolution on cultural policy (Govt. Bill 1996/97:3, Committee Report 1996/97:KrU1, Parliamentary Communication 1996/97:129), the Government staked out the course of cultural policy. Initiatives in other policy areas also help achieve the objectives of national culture policy, just as initiatives in the field of cultural policy help to achieve the objectives of other policy areas.

The cultural policy area includes the following agencies:

The National Council for Cultural Affairs, the Swedish Library for Talking Books and Braille, the National Public Arts Council, the National Swedish Handicraft Council, the Arts Grants Committee, the National Archives and regional archives, the Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research, the Swedish Dictionary of National Biography, the National Heritage Board, the National Historical Museums, the National Museum of Fine Arts with Prince Eugen's Waldemarsudde, the Museum of Natural History, the National Museums of World Culture, the Royal Armoury, Skolkloster Castle and the Hallwyl Museum, the National Maritime Museums, the Swedish Museum of Architecture, the Swedish National Collections of Music, the National Swedish Museums of Military History, Moderna museet, Swedish Travelling Exhibitions, the Living History Forum and the Commission for State Grants to Religious Communities. There are also three state-owned companies with activities in the cultural area: the Royal Opera, the Royal Dramatic Theatre and Voksenåsen, a national gift of Norway to Sweden.

In addition there are a large number of other institutions working in the field, of which the following can be mentioned:

The Swedish National Touring Theatre, Concerts Sweden, the House of Dance Foundation, the Easy-to-Read Foundation, Nordiska museet, Skansen, the National Museum of Science and Technology, the Museum of Work, the Dance Museum Fund for the Dance Museum, Drottningholms teatermuseum, the Carl and Olga Milles Lidingöhem Foundation, the Thiel Gallery, the Preventive Conservation Foundation in Kiruna and the Swedish Film Institute.