{"id":459677,"date":"2026-07-13T10:58:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T08:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/07\/13\/russia-alla-biennale-di-venezia-lue-raccomanda-lo-stop-ai-finanziamenti-da-2-milioni-di-euro\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T11:55:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T09:55:46","slug":"russia-at-the-venice-biennale-eu-urges-ending-2-million-euros-in-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/07\/13\/russia-at-the-venice-biennale-eu-urges-ending-2-million-euros-in-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia at the Venice Biennale: EU urges ending 2 million euros in funding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The European Commission has taken a clear stance on Russia\u2019s participation in the Venice Biennale. The Commission has recommended to the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA)<\/a>, which has the final say, that the 2 million euros in European funding earmarked for the International Art Exhibition be terminated<\/strong>. The announcement came on Saturday evening (11 July) via a post on X<\/a> from the Executive Vice-President for Democracy, Henna Virkkunen. \u201cCulture in Europe<\/strong> – funded with taxpayers’ money – should promote and safeguard democratic values<\/strong>.  These values are not respected in today\u2019s Russia,\u201d the Commissioner wrote. The European Commission\u2019s recommendation \u201cfollows a thorough assessment of the replies from the Biennale to justify the re-opening of Russia\u2019s pavilion,\u201d Virkkunen added.<\/p>\n

The incident dates back to 4 March 2026, when the president of the Venice Biennale Foundation, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, defended the decision<\/a> to admit Russia to the 61st International Art Exhibition<\/strong>. \u201cIn response to the communications and requests for participation from Countries, La Biennale di Venezia rejects any form of exclusion or censorship of culture and art,\u201d he had stated. The decision had prompted a reaction from Brussels<\/a>. In two letters sent on 10 and 30 April, the European Commission had asked the Foundation for clarification, warning that Russia\u2019s participation could constitute a \u201cbreach of the conditions of the European grant\u201d of 2 million euros awarded to support the Biennale.<\/p>\n

\n

The Foundation\u2019s decision has sparked fierce controversy, not least because it marks Russia\u2019s return to the Biennale for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. At the two previous editions of the International Art Exhibition, in 2022 and 2024, the Russian pavilion remained closed<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Despite the dispute with the European Commission, the 61st Biennale opened its doors on 9 May, and the Russian pavilion remained open. Not without protests. The decision now lies with the EACEA<\/strong>, the agency responsible for managing European programmes in the fields of education and culture, which must decide whether to follow the EU Commission\u2019s recommendation and permanently withdraw funding. The agency, as previously reported, had already come out in favour of withdrawing the funds<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the two previous editions of the International Art Exhibition, in 2022 and 2024, the Russian pavilion had remained closed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7896,"featured_media":459641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25713,25712,25707],"tags":[34818,28039,33330,27007,28646,26884,29984,33394,31990],"class_list":["post-459677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-general-news","category-world-politics","tag-agenzia-esecutiva-europea-per-listruzione-e-la-cultura","tag-arte-en","tag-biennale-di-venezia","tag-culture-2-en","tag-democracy-en","tag-commissione-ue-en","tag-henna-virkkunen-en","tag-ue","tag-venezia-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459678,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459677\/revisions\/459678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}