The council meeting on the fate of the Amstelveen Cobra Museum took a surprising turn before it had even started. The council, which has so far held its ground and wanted to stop the subsidy, will now work with the museum on a solution. Reason: a good conversation with lender Marius Touwen.
Quote millionaire Touwen came into the picture this week as the great savior of the Cobra Museum, when it became known that he wanted to loan the museum an amount with which it can pay the bills and debts until the end of this year.
The council was initially not impressed by this guidance and saw the debt burden increase. In a letter to the council yesterday, she wrote: “The years of losses that the museum has been dealing with have not been resolved with this loan. This also applies to the general reserves that have now been exhausted.” The council also emphasized in a council letter from earlier today that the proposal to end the subsidy is not off the table.
Yet the words of alderman for art and culture Herbert Raat at the start of the council meeting show that the council thinks very differently tonight:
“This afternoon, consultations took place between Mr Marius Touwen and the councilor for finance Adam Elzakalai. We have spoken intensively and it appears that we have many more things in common than we have differences of opinion. So we want to put our shoulders to the wheel together and in the present an action plan in the fourth quarter of this year.”
‘Can’t go well either’
The city council decided at the beginning of the meeting not to make any decisions tonight, but still had its say. The council’s proposal will not be put on the table again for the time being, although the council will ultimately have to agree to the way in which the council wants to save the museum.
Raat warns later in the meeting that the efforts may still come to nothing. “We don’t want to miss this opportunity, but the outcome is not guaranteed. It can’t go well either, but that’s not what we’re going for.”
Confidence grown
Raat denies to NH that the council ‘has not so much made a U-turn’, but that during the conversation the council’s confidence in Touwen has grown. “He would like to support the museum, we also want the museum to remain, but with a completely different working method, because this is not sustainable for us.”
Raat envisions the museum being saved with ‘public and private money’. “I’m happy that he is also willing to do that and now we have to see if we can work it out together.” He emphasizes that it should not be a plan for the coming quarter, but for the longer term. “For the next four years.”