Norwegian oil funds cultural renaissance

The Norwegian state nearly doubled its arts funding since 2006 to €1.2bn and had plans to increase it by a further €100m over the following two years in its bid to spend 1 per cent of the total government budget on culture.

The country had little exposure to the European sovereign debt crisis, was forecasted to have healthy economic growth in 2012, collected around €30bn every year in oil revenues which went into a €460bn sovereign wealth fund, and so had been one of the few countries in Europe able to indulge itself culturally since the crisis.