"It is clear that a large part of the program will not be possible, and under these circumstances, neither the municipal nor the state budget will be able to meet the financial commitments made." With these words, spoken during an interview with the newspaper Novi List , Croatian Minister of Culture Nina Obuljen Koržinek seems to have put the final nail in the coffin of Rijeka 2020, the current European Capital of Culture along with Galway in Ireland.

The pandemic, with the expenses and lost earnings due to the lockdown, but also the costs of the earthquake of March 22 in Zagreb, risk wiping out what was supposed to be the year of Rijeka's rebirth.

“We expected it,” assures – referring to possible budget cuts due to the virus – the director of the Rijeka2020 project, Emina Višnić, who is nevertheless trying to keep the tiller in check and save what can be saved. Other exponents of the Rijeka culture world use harsher words, such as Damir Čargonja Čarli, for years at the helm of the “Jan Palach” cultural center, who denounces “shameful words” by the minister.

Abandoned river?

In her interview with Novi List , published in early April, Nina Obuljen Koržinek expressed two points regarding the Rijeka Capital Year: on the one hand, the impossibility of keeping the financial commitments made given the pandemic and earthquake, and on the other, the futility – in her opinion – of asking the European Commission for a six-month extension of the European Capital of Culture (ECC) title until mid-2021, as suggested, for example, by Social Democrat MEP Predrag Fred Matić, who has reportedly already contacted the European executive on the matter.

“Personally, I don’t think it makes sense to extend the program to 2021, since there will be other cities that will take the title of European Capital of Culture. Moreover, all these cities are asked to be sustainable, so I hope that Rijeka will find a way to realize part of its program even without the official title,” the Minister of Culture cut short.

As for the budget, Obuljen Koržinek is not committing himself to any figures for now. “We will have to redefine the financial framework together with the city of Rijeka,” he says. The budget planned for this year of events and urban interventions (many redevelopments of buildings have already begun) is about 70 million euros, of which 10 million should come from the Ministry of Culture, 28 from the municipality, 25 from European funds and the remaining 7 million from the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County and private sponsors.

“We are all aware that this crisis, with the epidemic that has affected the entire world, has a significant impact on culture as well,” commented Rijeka2020 director Emina Višnić, “and this impact is reflected in the inability to implement the program while the isolation measures last and also on public finances, so for us it is not an unexpected statement from the minister according to which national funds for the programs that make up this project will be reduced to a certain extent.”

A different discussion, however, must be made for the possible extension of the year of the European Capital of Culture. “As for the postponement of some events to 2021, we are thinking about it both in Rijeka and Galway, simply because part of the planned programs cannot be maintained now,” admits Višnić, who recalls: “The decision is taken by the European Commission, or rather by the European Parliament, and certainly the position of our ministries, both Irish and Croatian, is extremely important in this sense”.

It would be important, in short, if Minister Obuljen Koržinek defended the requests made by “her” city at the European level. And on this point, other representatives of the Rijeka cultural world were much harsher with the minister. Damir Čargonja Čarli used his Facebook page to talk about “a shameful statement” by Obuljen Koržinek. “It is a stupid argument that in 2021 there are two more cities on the list,” explains Čarli, “because of a bureaucrat, Rijeka is losing a historic opportunity.”

“Any normal person is aware that after the virus, the world will never be the same,” continues Damir Čargonja Čarli, who cites the example of the Tokyo Olympics. “Perhaps they shouldn’t have postponed the Olympic Games to 2021 because they were originally scheduled for 2020?” “The truth,” concludes the artist from Rijeka, “is that behind these statements there is the usual local politics and the desire to put spokes in Rijeka’s wheels.”

A year to forget

Meanwhile, in the capital of Kvarner, everything is at a standstill, or almost. On March 12, it was decided to cancel all events for a month, until April 14. Since then, some events have been canceled until mid-May, but the shutdown will almost certainly be extended, at least "until July," according to T-Portal . "It's a cold shower," Ivan Šarar, Rijeka's Culture Councilor, told T-Portal. He, however, does not want to consider his city a "victim" of the pandemic, because the current situation dictates other priorities.

For Marin Blažević, the artistic director of the Rijeka National Theatre, “everything depends on how long the suspension of programmes and the ban on public events will last and when we will return to normality or rather to a new normality”. Meanwhile, those in the industry (about seventy people work at Rijeka 2020) speak of “a catastrophe”, with expenses already advanced and great uncertainty about what will be possible to do in the coming months.

“The project has been in preparation for 4 years now,” recalls Rijeka2020 director Emina Višnić, who hopes that part of the program will be realized anyway. “When the circumstances are more favorable and when the epidemic no longer poses a threat to human health, then culture will be the one to promote the awakening of life, new optimism and new social relations,” imagines Višnić.

While waiting for that moment, discussions with the city of Rijeka are continuing these days to find a balance to the budget and the attempt to divert part of the programming online. For the “Port of Diversity”, officially inaugurated at the beginning of February, it will not be an easy year.