The museums' increased rents are a political issue - SD proposals are voted down

It was last week that the Sweden Democrats (SD) announced that the party wants the culture committee to call on the government to investigate a change to the model with market rents for state-owned cultural properties.

The announcement came after the committee called the Norwegian Property Agency (SFV) to a meeting due to several museums receiving shockingly high rents.

When the culture committee met on Tuesday, however, SD's proposal was voted down by the other parties in the committee.

Leila Ali Elmi (MP), the committee's vice-chair, tells TT that the initiative was too weak and frivolous:

- SD has known about this problem and had influence on the government for four years. It is incredibly frivolous to come up with a proposal like this when you can't even gather your intended partners.

- We want to reform the entire rental model so that it takes into account the museums' social mission. The museums do not exist to generate returns for the state.

The fact that Sweden's cultural authorities have found it more difficult to get around due to higher rents from SFV has been discussed for a long time, but the issue has become relevant in the past year.

This spring, the State Museums of World Culture revealed plans to close two of its museums in Stockholm: the East Asian Museum and the Mediterranean Museum. The announcement came after SFV - which according to its government mission is to set market rents - announced a 57 percent increase in the rent for the Ethnographic Museum.

At the same time, a new survey from the trade union DIK showed that the share of the total expenses that cultural authorities spend on rental expenses increased by ten percent between 2019 and 2024.

The association's president, Anna Troberg, has on several occasions directed sharp criticism at the rental model, including in connection with the fact that the World Culture Museums and the Army Museum received sharply increased rents from SFV.

- Politicians need to rethink and see how other countries are doing instead of tinkering with the system. There are, for example, countries where state museums do not pay any rent at all because they believe that the cultural heritage and people's opportunity to take part in it is so important, Anna Troberg told DN in October.

In an investigation, the World Culture Museums have advocated the closure of the East Asian and Mediterranean Museum. In the same investigation, the authority states that they would need a supplement of at least SEK 35 million annually to keep the two museums open.

They should get that, believes the culture committee's chairman Mattias Karlsson (SD). He was the one who initiated the committee's meeting with SFV, and he is disappointed that the other parties in the culture committee voted down SD's proposal.

- I think it is sad that the committee misses a chance to put this issue very high on the agenda for an incoming government, he tells TT.