Culture Minister Lina Mendoni told Greek media outlet Kathimerini on Tuesday that the government wants to support Greek composers and performers with its proposed legislation to establish quotas for the amount of domestically-created music that can be played in certain public venues and used in publicly-funded film soundtracks.
“It is the first time that we are trying to do something to strengthen Greek-language music and Greek creators, at a time when, in the modern context, their art and income are declining,” Mendoni said.
According to the bill tabled by the Culture Ministry, a Greek musical work is a song composed of music and lyrics amounting to at least half of its length, or an instrumental performance of a Greek-language song.
The proposed legislation stipulates that in communal areas of hotels and other tourist accommodation, the number of Greek-language songs should not be lower than 45 per cent of the total amount of recorded music played.
The same quota will apply to communal areas of shopping centres, casinos, public transport and passenger waiting areas in airports and ports where recorded music is played. Concert venues, bars and nightclubs and not included.
Violations will incur administrative fines ranging from 2,000 to 20,000 euros.
The bill also stipulates that Greek audio-visual productions and films that are financed in any way by the public sector must use Greek-language songs or instrumental musical performances of Greek-language songs that make up a minimum 70 per cent of the total musical content of the production. The Culture Ministry said however that this is not an additional condition for receiving public funding.
The bill sparked criticism from left-wing opposition party SYRIZA’s head of culture, Kyriaki Malama, who said that it excludes most Greek artists.
“It excludes all Greek orchestral music, Greek rock, Greek jazz, but also radio stations that play music without lyrics, radio stations that recommend instrumental, atmospheric music, even if it comes from Greek creators,” Malama said in a statement on Monday, calling on the ministry to redraft the bill.
The Audiovisual Producers Association of Greece, SAPOE, called for the complete withdrawal of the bill.
“Producers express their opposition to this unconstitutional and incoherent decision by the Ministry of Culture which belongs to other times and other regimes. We call on the Liberal government to withdraw it and deal with the more serious problems of modern civilisation, of which there are many,” SAPOE said in a statement on Facebook.
The bill was released for public online consultation on February 29 and will remain open for comments until March 8. A total of 7,004 comments have been submitted to date.