Business sponsorship is a buzzword in cultural communities. Especially in the eastern half of Europe, where artists and institutions undergoing the hardships of historic transition have tended to treat it like a panacea.

There have been scarce moments when one or other body of European Union put the issue on its agenda. Therefore the public hearing of the Committee on Culture of the European Parliament on the subject in September 2003 was most welcome. Find BO contribution: Cultural Sponsorship in East-Central Europe.

Earlier, the EU emitted a resolution on business sponsorship to culture as early as 1986. In spite of the time span, it is valid as a legal document and positive as a policy message.

The Council of Europe used to spend more attention to cultural sponsorship. Among others, in 2000 that organisation gave support to BO to our project of collecting information on cultural sponsorship in east-central Europe with special regard to the issue of tax incentives. On this subject, see Tax Relief for Business Sponsorship and Donations to Culture - Incentive or Reward?

Some of the thoughts of this latter were in the centre of BO contribution to the Rencontre in Sévilla in March 2007.

Business sponsorhip to culture was the subject of a French-Hungarian seminar in Budapest in November 2004.

Finding statistics is not easy in this subject. Before we are able to find reliable data on east-central Europe, we watch elsewhere.

As a measure to increase our knowledge of the state of the art in east-central Europe, in addition to the inquiry on tax legislation, seven questions were sent to colleagues in the region at the end of 2000 , and again in the autumn of 2003.