First of all, the microphone was mute. Markus Blume looked, pressed, but nothing stirred. It took a while before the new Minister for Science and Culture was able to span the wide arc from freelance artists to the high-tech state of Bavaria. The former figure skater and CSU general secretary is familiar with slippery surfaces. But even for the successor to Bernd Sibler (CSU), it is not easy terrain that he entered on Wednesday in the committee.
Will he forge high-tech temples out of the universities? Like his predecessor Bernd Sibler, do you sometimes get direct advice from the artists? What role can the badly battered culture play under someone who has been sent to push through the controversial and delayed university reform?
Maybe that’s why Blume started the report on the cultural situation. A “feeling of oppression” lies over the event area. There is still a certain reluctance when it comes to public interest, which is why the state government wants to continue the Corona aid until the end of June. The restart program should also help with this, with up to three million euros for freelance artists. The opposition immediately complained that this was at best a “half-way signal” and that permanent support is now needed.
Blume shortened discussions on the billion-euro renovation backlog for cultural buildings. “You know the lists of requirements, you know the construction lists, that would certainly overstrain my report today,” said Blume.
500,000 euros for refugee artists
With a view to the Ukraine war, he promised up to 500,000 euros for refugee artists. He took a clear position on the question of how to deal with Russian industry representatives such as Valery Gergiev, the head of the Munich Philharmonic, who has since been dismissed and who did not distance himself from the war of aggression. He was “against any form of attitude testing”. But someone who has attracted attention because of their close relationship and is not now critically distancing themselves must “live with the corresponding consequences”.
How to deal with partners in Russia? It’s a dilemma that universities are also currently struggling with. Some would like to sever everything right away, the other scientific relationships. Blume defended the state government’s path of ending cooperation on cutting-edge technologies. He spoke of a “real turning point” in which it was “crucial” to remain sovereign. An emergency fund of half a million euros is now to be set up for refugee students. In addition, they should now be able to study in Bavaria as unbureaucratically as possible and simply catch up on exams here – the committee decided on an SPD initiative.
For Blume, the Ukraine crisis is now another construction site in addition to his actual job of making the CSU’s laptop and laser sword revolution even more visible in Bavaria and thus scoring points in the state elections next fall. The newly minted minister warmed up to the sale on Wednesday. The high-tech agenda, by means of which the Free State is to become one of the world’s most important locations for artificial intelligence (AI), is “unique” in Europe.
A staccato success followed: 2,500 permanent jobs, 3.5 billion euros, Munich Quantum Valley. With the university reform, which should make it correspondingly flexible, the knot must now be “cut through”. For Sibler, this attempt was the suicide mission, for Blume it could hardly be easier. The interests are contrary, the last draft was a crooked mosaic of opposing ideologies. But Blume is condemned to success. By the summer, he said, he wanted to have the new draft in the state parliament.