How Far Are We from Social Protection for Authors?

This text is an English translation of a post I originally wrote in Estonian on Facebook on 11 August 2026.

Today I went to the Estonian Ministry of Culture to meet with Maria-Kristiina Soomre. I have not shared every step taken in the meantime, because reporting on each individual step has not seemed important in itself.

The last time I wrote about this was at the end of May, when I sent a detailed four-page proposal* to the Estonian Artists’ Association, Estonian Writers’ Union, Estonian Composers’ Union and Estonian Authors’ Society. This followed a decision adopted at the 2026 annual meeting of the Estonian Painters’ Association to jointly support, with a clear and determined position, the need to provide creators of original works with social protection on better terms.

In response, the Ministry of Culture sent a letter to representatives of the three recognised creative unions, the authors’ society and myself, proposing a meeting.

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The problem itself, or its scale, comes as no surprise to anyone involved. Estonia's creative unions began working on the issue in 2000, led by Mati Sirkel of the Estonian Writers’ Union. In 2004, a compromise was reached. Instead of establishing the originally intended social protection, it was easier to create a system of grants, essentially unemployment support for creative people.

A great deal has been researched since then, including the Praxis study commissioned by the Ministry of Culture in 2021, and a great deal has been discussed, including at the 2026 Opinion Festival and in discussions at EKKM and the Estonian Artists’ Association.

The Ministry of Culture itself is doing good work, and recently a separate large organisation called Kultuuritahe was also established. So what, in my eyes, is the main challenge?

Put simply, the entire state system as it currently exists, through the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Ministry of Culture, is built so that, on one hand, some creators can receive grants in order to survive and, on the other, artists who are currently in demand can attend residencies and show their work internationally, at biennials for example.

All of this is necessary.

But between these two groups floats the actual majority of creative people, who are treated as entrepreneurs.

This system is outdated.

In my proposal, I have also addressed the possibility of tax relief**, but the most important issue that emerges is still the lack of health insurance.

Germany, for example, has the Künstlersozialkasse. Once an author earns approximately €3,900 per year from the sale of their work and declares that income, they can receive health insurance while paying roughly €50–100 per month in social contributions.

The result is that an artist has both health insurance and a pension.

Something that also emerged very clearly in today's discussion is that when people working in culture discover "sometime later" that this protection is missing, it becomes a considerable burden on the state. If their possibility to take responsibility for themselves is restricted now, the consequences will eventually fall on the state anyway.

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I understand that this has been considered normal for a long time.

But today, it should be possible to give creators of original works a legal framework through which they can show, through actual sales, that their work is wanted, and receive social protection on terms that are realistically within their reach.

What surprised me today was learning that no modelling or data analysis has been done to determine how much providing health insurance for one creative professional would actually cost the state. There are approximately 6,000 members in Estonia's officially recognised creative unions.

And there is even less analysis of how much one creative professional brings back to the state.

Of course, the intellectual and emotional resource created by culture is almost impossible to calculate in monetary terms. But because the other parties involved, including the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Finance, necessarily think in these terms, these numbers matter.

This is why my proposal has been to look at what has already been done elsewhere in Europe, including Germany and France. Perhaps we do not even need to begin with tax benefits. We could begin simply with providing health insurance on better terms, based on income declared by the creative professional themselves.*** The status of a creative professional already exists in Estonia's Business Register.

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Unfortunately, although the Ministry of Culture is working on legislative proposals, the idea currently being actively developed is mainly that of rolling social tax. In other words, when a person's income fluctuates, it would no longer be assessed month by month, but over a longer period.

The actual amount to be paid, currently €292.38 per month, would not change.

And at that level, it would still remain beyond the reach of most creative professionals.

To give one example, the fee paid by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia for one book is, very broadly speaking, around €3,000.

I believe that this search for a solution, which has already lasted more than twenty years, is especially urgent now.

Alongside globalisation, the increasing use of English among younger generations, and the political and mental-health crises surrounding us, the preservation and continuation of the Estonian language, literature, art and other forms of original creation rests in the hands of the people who create original works.

Not intermediaries.

Not buildings.

What sustains the Estonian state and nation is an identity created by culture in all its different forms.

And culture does not create itself. It needs authors.

At today's meeting, we also touched upon the question of how an author should actually be defined. What makes an author**** a professional?

The solutions exist, if we look with eyes willing to see them.

What am I afraid of?

First, of course, that somewhere beneath an enormous pile of papers, the "most important detail", health insurance for authors, will simply disappear.

Kultuuritahe, for example, also identifies among its priorities improving access to culture, preventing culture's share of the state budget from decreasing, and advocating for fairer working conditions for cultural workers.

All of this is absolutely necessary.

But the most important question behind all of it is whether Estonian culture will be able to survive the difficult years ahead at all. And that happens ONLY through the people who CREATE that culture.

First and most urgently, solutions must be found to guarantee health insurance for authors, which at present is largely absent. This can only be solved by putting FOCUS on this particular issue.

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People have sent a man to the Moon.

Germany, France and Ireland have all managed to solve this "impossible mission".

Finding an administratively workable solution requires agreement in principle, negotiations with decision-makers in the other ministries mentioned above, political will, and the strength to adopt and implement new legislation.

Who knows how, and is willing, to take this pro bono baton forward?

In a rather Thatcherite spirit, I want actions and results.

Someone must surely be capable of actually making change happen, rather than only repeatedly running into the walls that already exist.

Each of us is responsible within the limits of what we know. That is precisely why I have a responsibility to share this. Changes that keep pace with the times cannot grow out of inaction. They have to be carried through, together with the people whom they affect most.

Within the cultural field, there is ONE issue that should unquestionably be a matter of "this first, everything else afterwards", and it needs to be brought into public discussion before Estonia's 2027 parliamentary elections:
health insurance for creators of original works.
Everything else comes second.


* The proposal: A proposal intended to initiate a joint effort across Estonia's creative unions, addressed to the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Social Affairs and Ministry of Finance, to amend the Creative Persons and Artistic Associations Act. Its central purpose is to provide professional authors with continuous social protection even when their income is irregular.

The proposal includes the background and definition of the problem; a definition of the author, with the creator of an original work at its centre; principles for qualification; a possible direction for solving the health-insurance question; areas of tax treatment that could be analysed; the idea of beginning with authors who belong to recognised creative unions; possible next steps; and the intended objectives and impact of the proposal.

** On taxation: There are many examples, but to name a few: France has separate thresholds for tax-free income earned from the sale of creative work and for additional work an artist may undertake, such as teaching, lecturing or licensing their work for use on different products. Across Europe, culture is also often subject to lower VAT rates. In France it is around 5.5%, in Germany 7%, and in Finland 13.5%.

Another important distinction is that when artists sell their own work, VAT may in some cases be 0%, while galleries are subject to the country's standard VAT rate. Significant tax benefits also exist for musicians' performances and the sale of books.

This is how a state supports its creators in practice.

*** On feasibility: The proposal is based on the idea that a workable solution is possible because similar systems already exist elsewhere. Health insurance could be connected to sales and declared creative income. We are not asking for money to appear from nowhere. When reduced taxation concerns income that creators themselves have earned, it is not enough simply to say that there is no room in the state budget.

**** Who could qualify as an author? An author could qualify when some or all of the following conditions are met:
a) membership in a recognised creative union, or professional activity demonstrated in another way;
b) original works created and publicly presented, published, sold or licensed during the previous two to three years;
c) annual income from creating, selling or licensing original works, or from royalties, reaching an agreed annual minimum threshold;
d) income that can be verified through data from the Estonian Tax and Customs Board, contracts, invoices, royalty statements or other documentation.