The next government should allocate an additional €250 million to the arts and cultural sectors to boost their financial stability, the Dutch arts council Raad voor Cultuur said on Friday.

The recommendation appears in a report sent to education and culture minister Gouke Moes (BBB), following a request from his predecessor to examine how “financing” for culture can be improved.

The council said public spending on arts and culture has steadily declined relative to other sectors over the past 20 years. Adjusted for today’s prices, the sector has lost €500 million a year since 2005, the council said and now accounts for 0.35% of government spending, compared with 0.47% 20 years ago.

This, the council said, means the Netherlands is now one of the few EU countries where spending on culture has fallen, and the national budget for culture has dropped below the European average.

The council warns that this decline is particularly problematic for an labour-intensive sector where rising wage costs cannot easily be absorbed through efficiency gains — “a Beethoven symphony cannot suddenly be performed by half the number of musicians,” it points out.

To stimulate private investment, the government must first set an example by increasing its own contribution, the council said, suggesting a €250 million rise as an initial step.

It will be up to the next coalition to assess how much to spend on the arts and culture and of the big parties, only D66 and the GroenLinks-PvdA alliance support a spending boost.

The belief that lower public spending leads to greater private contributions is also “a myth”, the council says.

Its research shows that private donations and investments have remained unchanged for two decades at around €400 million a year — roughly 10% of the total subsidies provided by national, provincial and local government.