8.10 Current debates and reforms
The latest initiative of interest brought to the parliamentary Commission of Culture is the Statute of the Artist. This statute collects a series of proposals with the intention of improving the working conditions of the artist, in the broadest sense, referring not only to the artists in public spectacles but all those creators, interpreters and technicians without discriminating on their age or gender status.
Moreover, the 2019 V meeting of Culture and Citizenship (V Encuentro Cultura y Ciudadanía) is a meeting, which has been held since 2015 in Matadero Madrid, among different cultural agents around the challenges posed by democratisation and access to culture, framed in the production-consumption dichotomy. One of the central themes is the understanding of new institutions. Another subject is how public space, citizenship, challenges and possibilities of cultural policies are built within the context of the new digital culture of the 21st century. In 2017, after continuous protests by the cultural agents, the Government lowered the added value taxation of live shows such as theatre, dance, opera, circus, etc. and in 2018 also the taxation on movie screenings was implemented.
At a parliamentary level, in the Culture Commission of the Congress of Deputies, the Government asked the State Secretary of Culture to appear in order to give information of the degree of execution of the Culture Plan 2020. Also the Socialist Parliamentary Group has raised a legal initiative in the Culture Commission on the implementation of various measures of the Culture Plan 2020.