Parliament: The bill for the new museum policy was voted in principle in the Committee

Voted by majority vote on his authority, by the competent committee of the Parliament, the bill of the Ministry of Culture for the modernization of museum policy. ND was in favor while PASOK-KINAL, KKE and MeRA25 voted against, with the Greek Solution being reserved for the Plenary. It is noted that SYRIZA is abstaining from the votes.

Earlier, the bill came under fire from all extra-parliamentary bodies who had been invited to express their views to the committee. The representatives of the organizations expressed their strong disagreement with the transformation of the five major public museums into Legal Entities under Public Law, arguing that the management of the country’s cultural heritage cannot be done by an appointed Board of Directors selected by the respective government, without transparency and without control. They also talked about the creation of two levels of employees and the non-guarantoring of labor rights. Particularly:

Despina Koutsoumba, president of the Association of Greek Archaeologists, accused the Minister of Culture & Sports Lina Mendonis of “ignoring the Association and not having any dialogue or consultation with the employees” while talking about the deliberate understaffing of the museums in order to justify the management of the museums and their exploitation by private individuals without control and transparency. “Our museums have absorbed millions of funds from the NSRF to re-exhibit and their collections are by no means obsolete. The conversation must start with everything that these museums have already achieved and what much more they can achieve in the existing form, as special regional services. It’s very bad that someone creates problems and then allegedly comes to solve them,” he said.

As the president of the Association of Greek Archaeologists said “at the end of 2022 and while the minister knew that the regular staff is not enough, she did not renew the staff contracts, she chose not to take the contract holders either to create an artificial problem and come later to say that is solved by converting museums into NPDD”. “The problem is not solved by converting the museums into NPDDs, but by a simple signature of the minister to renew the contracts of the hourly employees and to request permanent staff from ASEP”, he stated, noting that, “with this bill, 735 vacant positions are abolished organic positions from all the services of the Ministry”.

Mrs. Koutsouba insisted that, “the improvement of museum policy can be done in the existing form” and emphasized that “there are ways for managers to have their hands free, but always in the context of public accounting and not with appointed boards of directors that will they do what they want without control and transparency”.

“The Board of Directors will be of the absolute choice of the minister and the respective government, with the only qualifications being that they have some career in their social field and they may be unrelated to archeology but they will manage a museum. We say that the money of the Greek people should not be managed by an appointed board of directors. What interests us is the continuation of the unified protection of the cultural heritage”, concluded the president of the Association of Greek Archaeologists.

Ioannis Verriopoulos, president of the Panhellenic Union of Antiquities Conservators, spoke against the bill, which, as he said, “the state abdicates its responsibility for the protection of cultural heritage and transfers the management of museums to appointed administrative boards”.

He said that there will be two levels of employees while strongly criticizing the fact that “NPDD employees will be accountable for any possible disciplinary offense to a one-member body, a director, while the rest of the employees will be accountable to a three-member body in which employees also participate.”

Dimitris Koufovasilis, president of the Association of Extraordinary Archaeologists, spoke against the conversion of museums into NPDD, arguing that “the cultural wealth and museums of our country are being turned into decor”. “Unanimously and unanimously, all the bodies declare that they are against the bill. This new museum policy perceives museums as decor. It’s politics of the pasticada. But museums are neither bars nor restaurants. This is not their mission,” he stressed.

At the same time, Mr. Koufovasilis mentioned that the Minister of Culture “in 2006 explained to her in an article why museums can and should function exactly as they did then and argued that there was no need to change the status of museums”.

“In terms of work, for at least 5 years now all the contracted archaeologists have disappeared from the museums and I wish there were permanent ones who would cover the needs. But the Ministry of Culture is abandoning the museums in order to be able to argue about their condition and their supposed improvement that the bill will bring,” he noted.

Theofanis Charcharos, president of the Acropolis Museum Workers’ Association, spoke on the same wavelength, speaking of unequal treatment of workers and non-guaranteeing of labor rights. “It is a model … of operating museums that does not ensure labor rights while creating questions as to whether private individuals can decide without control on the management of cultural heritage. It creates a sense of opacity and exclusion from decisions that should be aimed at the better functioning of museums, as well as non-respect of labor rights. It does not even ensure the necessary representation of workers on the boards of directors”, he emphasized, among other things.

Panagiotis Stathoulopoulos, president of the Association of Workers at the Organization for the Management and Development of Cultural Resources, expressed fears “for further privatization of museums by handing over their management to private individuals with disastrous consequences”. “It is a memorandum policy that opens the door to their shrinking,” he said.

Ioannis Mavrikopoulos, president of the Panhellenic Union of Antiquities Conservation Officers, also stated his opposition to the bill, speaking of a change in the working regime and the creation of two-speed employees.

Yiannis Tsakopiakos, president of the Panhellenic Federation of Employees of the Ministry of Culture, also stated against the bill, emphasizing the non-joining of the service and disciplinary councils of the employees of the NPDD at the Acropolis Museum. “The same applies to the new Legal Entities that will be established, with what this may mean for personal or work relationships and whether they are liked or not,” he noted.

“Care should be taken to correct the labor rights that are affected and to accept requests that are crucial and immediate for the course of the NPDD and their proper functioning”, said Mr. Tsakopiakos and suggested, among other things:

* A member of the board of directors of NPDD museums to be nominated by the general council of the Federation which also represents all the employees of the Ministry of Culture.

* That the Minister of Culture expressly undertakes that:

– the conversion of the 5 museums into NPDD does not and will not affect the public character of the museums at all,

– will not bring any change to the archaeological service, and

– the rights of workers in the NPDD will not be affected, whether they choose to stay in them or choose to go to the Ministry of Culture.

“The minister has said it, but we would like her to repeat it and make an explicit commitment, in order to eliminate any justified concerns that exist,” he noted.

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