Prague, Oct 4 (CTK) – The 10th International Compatriotic Festival, which ended in Prague on Sunday, has been the last one, due to the minimum financial support from Czech authorities, the festival’s organiser Vera Dousova said in an open letter to Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek.
The Foreign Ministry is a co-organiser of the festival that lasted four days and in which 18 music, dance and other expatriate groups comprising 390 members participated. Its financial support for the festival was 100,000 crowns, which Dousova said was merely formal and negligible.
She said it is noteworthy that the compatriotic festival was overshadowed by festivals of local significance that have budgets of millions of crowns and receive millions in state subsidies.
Dousova said the financial support that the compatriotic festival received from the Czech state is only a fraction of the support that similar events win in other countries.
She said the festival was attended by 5800 expatriates in the ten years of its existence.
The Foreign Ministry has told CTK that when the subsidies for cooperation with Czechs living abroad were divided, the organisers of the festival received the highest sum of all.
The organising Seven Rays civic group has been a regular recipient of the subsidies for the projects aimed at cooperation with Czech expatriates since 2011, the Foreign Ministry said.
“The relevant Foreign Ministry commission approved even two projects for Seven Rays and a subsidy of 100,000 crowns for the International Compatriotic Festival, the highest approved sum,” Irena Valentova, from the ministerial press department, has said.
The government has also been supporting the work of individual expat associations, she added.
