The financial contribution made by the Ministry of Culture to the Círculo de Bellas Artes of Madrid – a private, non-profit cultural entity – will increase given the decrease in recent years in the financing that the Community of Madrid provided to the institution. The measure was reported by Culture this Tuesday within the framework of the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, of which the Ministry is a member.
The decision of the Ministry of Culture consists of an increase in its contribution in 2026 until it reaches 300,000 euros per year, 50,000 euros more than those delivered this year, so that the Circle can maintain its regular activity. This, after the Community of Madrid has reduced its financing, going from 250,000 euros in 2024 to 100,000 euros this year, and with a forecast of 12,000 euros for 2026.
“The Círculo de Bellas Artes is one of the cultural and artistic engines of Madrid, and the Ministry of Culture reinforces its commitment to its work, whose impact goes beyond the city,” Culture explained in a statement. Minister Ernest Urtasun has pointed out in that text that what was done by the Community of Madrid “represents an unjustified attempt to condition the programming of the Circle and exert pressure incompatible with the cultural autonomy that any artistic institution must govern”, and has added that “economic asphyxiation is a practice of censorship that we are seeing in other Autonomous Communities and that we are fighting from the Ministry of Culture.”
The threat of a lack of financing is experienced in the midst of the celebration of the 100 years of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, a meeting place not only for cultural activity in Madrid, but also national and international. In its historic building on Alcalá Street, for a century the Círculo has developed – among many other things – art and photography exhibitions, theater shows, concerts, film series, open training in different disciplines and debates between thinkers.