Committee chair Heljo Pikhof (SDE) said Thursday that the Cultural Endowment Fund (Kultuurikapital) currently has the funds to carry this out, but the project needs to be included on the Kultuurikapital list, alongside five other recipient investments, first. The legislative amendment will allow this to go ahead.

Pikhof told ERR that she: "Fully supports the use of Kultuurikapital funding /.../ for the completion of the long-awaited TV house."

"The members of the committee were also of the same opinion during the preparatory phase of this bill," Pikhof went on.

On Tuesday, the culture committee decided to send for its second reading (of three) the bill amending the Cultural Endowment of Estonia Act along with the Gambling Tax Act, a bill the committee had initiated, and which allows allocating investment support to an additional building deemed to be of national cultural importance and which fulfills strategic goals in the cultural field, in addition to those objects already approved by the Riigikogu.

The bill empowers the Kultuurikapital supervisory board to decide on the proposal from the Minister of Culture, the approval of the Riigikogu's culture committee, to finance another cultural building of national importance, though only if it does not affect the completion of projects in Tallinn, already listed as culturally significant buildings.

Also, when a building added to the list is completed, the next cultural building can be selected for support only after all payments for the previous object have been made, Pikhof added.

"The financing of a new object can only be decided on if there are actually sufficient funds, and this is the current situation here. Kultuurikapital has the ability to finance the completion of another cultural object without it in any way disturbing the construction of cultural buildings earlier added to the list via the Riigikogu's decision," she went on.

"Conversely, failures regarding some objects have in fact increased the funds left on standby with Kultuurikapital, and it would be expedient to use these and to contribute to the completion of a building seen as important to the state."

Pikhof added that once the legal amendment enters into force, the corresponding request for the construction of a new TV house would be submitted to the Minister of Culture, which the culture committee can then approve.

The addition of this additional cultural object to the list will be done in a different manner than was the case with the earlier list of nationally important cultural objects, which totaled five buildings, and which the Riigikogu voted on in September 2021 (link in Estonian).

These five were: The  Tartu downtown cultural center (SÜKU), the  Kreenholm Manufaktuur quarter in Narva, the Arvo Pärt Music House in Rakvere, the extension of the current building of the National Opera (Rahvusooper) building, and the Tallinn Film Wonderland.

"Next the Riigikogu's main chamber decided. However, it is Minister of Culture Heidy Purga who has decided on the additional cultural object, and who has come to the cultural committee with her proposal, and if the committee approves that proposal, the minister will proceed with it with Kultuurikapital," Pikhof had said in October.

The culture committee chair noted that the second reading of the draft bill amending the Cultural Endowment of Estonia Act and the Gambling Tax Act is planned for February 21, while the bill is planned to enter into force in mid-March.

In October last year, Pikhof told ERR that had there been no obstruction going on at the Riigikogu, the legislation could have been adopted in 2023.

The second component of the bill concerns creative workers and entails the share of activities financed from the funds received from the gambling tax for cultural capital being changed, so the current creative work allowance becomes a creative work fee. This, it is argued, will give a creative person a degree of social security that freelance cultural workers have been pursuing for a long period of time.

In May 2023, Tallinn City Government initiated a detailed plan for the new TV house, which will be built on a plot, currently used as a staff parking lot, between the Radio House (Raadiomaja) on Gonsiori and the News House (Uudistemaja) on Kreutzwaldi.

This detailed plan is based on a design created five years ago by architects Kadarik Tüür Arhitektid OÜ, who won the competitive process in place at the time.

That the project has stalled since then mainly relates to the funding issues noted above, and had also been delayed by first the coronavirus pandemic and then the invasion of Ukraine.

The new TV house is estimated to cost around €65 million, while no funding for this was included in the 2024 state budget.

Once built, the TV house will replace the current somewhat dilapidated facility on Gonsiori. The radio and news houses were refurbished some years ago.

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