As of today, three lines of social support are accessible to independent cultural workers, artistic entities and cultural spaces that have seen their activities hindered by the Covid-19 pandemic.
These three financial lines are part of the Economic and Social Stabilization Program (PEES), approved in June.
The social support line is aimed at technicians, artists, authors and other professionals, who have requested or received extraordinary support from Social Security as self-employed workers, and who apply for a maximum of 1.316,43 euros.
Applicants who are accepted in this support line will have to deduct the extraordinary support of 219 euros that they received from Social Security in April and May. Which means that instead of a maximum of €1.316,43, they will receive €877.
This support will be paid in two installments in August and in September.
Although the PEES document indicates that this social support line has an allocation of 34,3 million euros, the information provided by the Ministry of Culture indicates the existence of 30 million euros, because that other amount is the maximum support ceiling.
This social support is available to 18.000 beneficiaries, but the Minister of Culture, Graça Fonseca, admitted that the universe of those covered could be larger.
There is also a line of financing, of three million euros, for professional artistic entities to resume activity and to deal with losses caused by the shutdown of the sector, with the Covid-19 pandemic.
In addition to these, there is also a financing line, of 750 thousand euros, for theaters, cinemas and cultural audiences to adapt to the recommendations imposed in the context of a pandemic. Each applicant will have access to a maximum of two thousand euros.
According to the Ministry of Culture, all applicants can access this support from today on the official PEES website (pees.gov.pt) or on the Culture portal (cultureportugal.gov.pt).
This week, the conditions of access to the 8,5 million euros of budget reinforcement from the Instituto do Cinema e Audiovisual (ICA), taken from the management balance, will also be disclosed, also to meet the needs of workers in this area.
As for the funding line for network programming, in the amount of 30 million euros, which is intended for partnerships between artistic entities and municipalities, it has been open since July.
Last week, after detailing some of the conditions for accessing all this support – totaling 70 million euros – and questioned by the Lusa agency, Graça Fonseca did not commit to extending this extraordinary support after September and during the winter, having in account a possible new stoppage of cultural activity, if there is an increase in cases of infection of covid-19.
"What will come in the winter we don't know, I can't anticipate scenarios," he said.
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