On Friday, the Ministry of Culture released the draft of the Joint Ministerial Decision aimed at curing chronic salary inequalities and distortions faced by artists.

Following a meeting held on February 15 between the Prime Minister and representatives of artists and performing arts students, the government announced that it is moving forward with treatment for the long-term distortion which existed prior to PD85/2022 and intensified during the tenure of the previous government, removing the chronic pay gap for graduates of performing arts schools in the State.

In this context, the co-competent Ministries of Finance, Interior and Culture and Sports have drawn up a KYA plan, which concerns the salary status of graduates of drama schools and dance schools in the State, regardless of the year of graduation (before or after 2003), and which establishes a rational and equal way of remuneration, both of those who provide artistic work, and of those who provide related work, such as artistic-educational.

Key points of the proposed MIA are:

  • The formation of a special salary scale for Artistic Work (KE) with 19 salary scales (MC). The monthly basic salary of MK1 is set at €1037, with the possibility of salary progression.
  • The inclusion in it of unregulated theater, dance and cinema specialties, as well as related educational specialties, which will cure chronic problems in the way of remuneration in artistic-educational positions, especially in OTAs. (It should be reminded that the regulation does not concern positions announced by the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs as a separate qualification system is followed for them.)
  • The equal salary treatment of all graduates of drama schools and dance schools, regardless of their year of graduation. In this way, a perennial request of the sector is satisfied, a Gordian bond of twenty years is solved, the distortion that was consolidated in 2017 with the arrangement of SYRIZA is corrected.

As the government emphasizes, the proposed regulation deals with pathogens that have plagued the industry since 2003 and is a practical ethical and substantial recognition of the work of artists working in the public sector. After two decades, the current Government provides a solution to yet another problem of cultural workers.

“This regulation comes to be added to the network of broader initiatives undertaken by the Government to form for the first time a national framework for education in the performing arts and to upgrade studies in this field, through the establishment of a university-level School of Performing Arts in 2025, the grading of those schools that remain ungraded, and the permeability of studies in performing arts by providing academic corridors for graduates of performing arts schools who wish to continue their studies” is noted.