The Minister of Culture, at Gaudeamus: “Increasing VAT on books is on my list of priorities. On the same list is the state of libraries”

The Minister of Culture, Andras Demeter, gave a speech on Wednesday at the official opening of the Gaudeamus Book Fair, and said that one of his priorities concerns the issue of the implications of the VAT increase on books, which he will try to solve “as soon as the situation allows”, reports Agerpres.

“Increasing VAT on books is on my list of priorities, when the situation will allow it. On the same list of priorities is the state of the libraries, starting from the Book Fund which can no longer be enriched as it should be and up to the spaces for whose maintenance and transformation into an attraction, the resources have dwindled even to the point of disappearance,” said the official, at the official opening of the Gaudeamus Radio Romania Book Fair.

The Minister of Culture also spoke about “the challenges of networks and the attraction, according to some fatal, of new media”.

“But we must also note the fact that the new agora is no longer only spoken, it has an important written component and therefore also read. We also see how the tradition of subtitling films versus dubbing them, stopped in our country since the beginning of the audiovisual industry, is reconfirmed by the contemporary symbiosis of the narration through sound and image, with that of its transcription or written completion. But this also contributes, through a natural exercise, not only to the facilitation of language acquisition foreign countries and the openness to those cultures, but also to the development of reading and writing skills”, continued Andras Demeter.

“The list of problems is huge”

The minister said that “the list of problems is huge”, and “the list of solutions and the people with whom they can be implemented is also long”. Andras Demeter believes that “each problem, solution or person is like a page in a book, a separate page, it has no impact and perhaps no value in itself.”

“But when you put the pages together and the book is connected, the story makes sense. The same with us, only put together, only working between the covers of a common endeavor, in good faith, can we solve things and give the necessary meanings. So, when opening the cover of the Gaudeamus Fair, I can only draw one conclusion: this fair becomes a good opportunity to write together the pages of the book, which binds a successful, real and impactful story for our children and grandchildren,” added Demeter.

He also stated that “year after year, the book market in Romania has grown” and that the last Barometer of cultural consumption, launched a week ago, “can wake up metaphor lovers to reality”.

“42% of the respondents say that cultural education determined increased performance at school. We started with children, because they take the first step into the world of culture through books, starting with textbooks, children's literature and especially fairy tales, stories, stories, through which we start from a very early age to cultivate the love of reading. 67% of the participants did not go to any cultural activity in 2024, but not because they did not want to, but because they did not have the opportunity or there was no suitable offer, or it was simply not at hand. For them, for now, the book is the one that can save something. 10% of adults went to a book fair at least once a year,” said the Minister of Culture, Andras Demeter.