The interim Minister of Culture, Andras Istvan Demeter, on Monday said that he is waiting for a proposal from the Romanian Publishers' Association (AER) to deal with Romania's participation in the International Book Fair in Frankfurt 2028, as guest of honour, otherwise this responsibility will be entrusted to the Office of Film and Cultural Investments (OFIC).

Demeter participated in a news conference dedicated to preparing Romania's participation, as guest of honour, in the International Book Fair in Frankfurt 2028, a conference in which he presented the framework for organising the schedule, the role of the organisations involved and voiced support for the proposal for OFIC to manage the schedule.

Demeter's proposal was met by the refusal of AER, with the vice-president of the publishers' guild, Lidia Bodea, reproaching the Ministry of Culture for not inviting the association to the discussions on Romania's participation in the 80th edition of the Frankfurt Fair.

'I am waiting for only one thing: AER - which theoretically meets the legal conditions and requirements - either makes me a proposal to be the first violin, the second violin and which it wants and can assume, so that it can be integrated. In the absence of such proposal, I see no other solution than to go with the only institutional approach I was trying to talk about, namely to designate the only entity that could manage this problem, and then it will carry out the project from one end to the other with the involvement of guilds, associative organisations, creative unions, including the Writers' Union, with all its subsidiaries, and to bring together all these ideas - which for the time being are rather sporadic - and interests. Here we are talking about industries. Even the Frankfurt Book Fair is an industry. They are interested in organising an event, in renting the stand, in collecting the money and all finishing a success story. It's about industries,' Demeter told AGERPRES.

The minister added that he invited the Romanian Publishers' Association to discussions.

'I have invited them. I participated in the discussions. I waited. They said they waited too. Well, today we broke the ice, so that everyone knows that the other is waiting. But the law is the same since 2003. We should know it just as well. The ministry organises, with consultation, or it can entrust them with organising themselves with the support of the ministry. We know these things. We hide behind our fingers when we say 'I waited for you to invite me'. As long as I, personally, believe that I am the only minister who participated in Bucharest, in Sfantul Gheorghe, in Cluj, in Mures, in I don't know how many fairs in which I had meetings with the organisers of the fairs, with the participating publishers, to discuss Frankfurt. Starting with Bookfest. All these things could or should have been known. Well, no problem. What has happened has passed, from this moment we can at least take note of each other and, by elimination, there is only AER, from the point of view of the (book) industry, if it has the capacity to manage the entire project,' Demeter said.

He added that the budget of the project will be provided by the government, but there will also have to be 'an attracted party, because the government does not provide the entire amount.'

Demeter, however, expressed his distrust of AER's taking up the management of the schedule.

'AER will tell me what ARTEXIM or the National Library will have said: 'we are only good at books, we are not interested in the rest'. Good. And then I ask you: but what about the rest? Who does the rest? OFIC is a kind of institutional project manager. It could have been anyone else. It wasn't meant to be. I repeat, if AER comes with this proposal to manage the whole, I have no problem with OFIC returning to its priorities. And then we will make a government decision by which we entrust AER with this responsibility,' the culture minister also said.

In his turn, the manager of OFIC, Valentin Savu, told AGERPRES that the appointment of the Film and Cultural Investments Office as manager of Romania's participation in the International Book Fair in Frankfurt 2028 was only a proposal of the Ministry of Culture.

Savu went on to say that OFIC was appointed a week ago and 'thrown, unfortunately, into a war of intentions' to which it tries not to respond.

'Last week, the culture minister made a proposal to OFIC. That should be discussed from the perspective of OFIC, as we have done with the Alliance of Romanian Film Producers, with the professional associations. There can be no such designation outside of a dialogue. The Ministry of Culture will have to coordinate this dialogue, in its capacity as the supervisory authority. From my perspective, that of the OFIC manager, such a proposal - unlike my colleagues who refused such a proposal - cannot be refused,' Savu said.

He added that the Frankfurt 2028 project is one 'of overwhelming importance, especially to the book market, and also to the entire Romanian culture.'

'And we have to look at what has happened in the last five years, past the COVID pandemic, at the format of the Frankfurt Book Fair. It has changed, we are no longer talking about a book fair in the sense of the seven, five days of a book fair, but we are talking about a real 'cultural capital' in another country. For such a programme of national interest, a government decision is needed (...) everyone needs to contribute to this programme. The government decision cannot be drawn up, issued if we do not have a programme, which should be made by the Ministry of Culture, together with the one who will be designated to coordinate, together with all the associative organisations, from publishing houses, to translators, booksellers, writers, authors,' Savu said.

During the meeting, representatives of the National Library of Romania, the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR), ARTEXIM, the National Centre of Filmmaking (CNC) and the Administration of the National Cultural Fund (AFCN) presented how the institutions they represent can contribute to the development of the Frankfurt 2028 programme, without taking up the responsibility of managing the programme. AGERPRES ( RO - editing by: Daniel Popescu; EN - writing by: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu)