Starting from 13 March 2020 the "MEC Centers" (Centros MEC) cultural centers closed their doors. The minister of Education and Culture Pablo da Silveira intended to close them since 2018 before he was not even minister. The MEC Centers were a network of 127 centers created during the first presidency of Tabaré Vázquez and developed in the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) in coordination with the departmental governments, in order to decentralize the public policies on culture by opening cultural centers in several cities of the interior of Uruguay, each one managed authonomously with locals' needs in mind. But with the Budget Law of 2020 in the end they were permanently supressed. During a parliamentary discussion of the Budget Law draft, the minister of Education and Culture Pablo da Silveira stood up for this measure arguing that these centers were a "kind of independent republic" and that their politics "did not coincide" with what the Ministry was intending to do. Also alleged that these centers were "misusing public funds". This change was condemned by the Broad Front legislators, among them member of parliament Gabriel Otero twitted saying that "67 cities were left without MEC Centers, they destroyed them without thinking about the people, without culture there is no future".
