The meeting, to which experts and cultural managers from across Europe have been invited, will feature the research “40 Recommendations from 40 Years of ECoC: Insights for the European Capitals of Culture from 2034,” conducted by Valentina Montalto and commissioned by the two European Capitals of Culture.

We at EcocNews, at a Culture Next event, gathered some insights from the research with Valentina Montalto here. And, in an editorial of our own (here), we tried to list the main critical points that have emerged over these 40 years. We at Ecocnews will be in Chemnitz to follow the event and be able to report on it in our webmagazine.

Indeed, 40 years have passed since the first European Capital of Culture, which was Athens, a program proposed by the then Minister of Culture in Greece, Melina Mercouri, with the support of the Minister of Culture in France, Jack Lang. Since then many things have changed in this program of the European commission by widening the choice and making citizens more and more protagonists.

Let us recall, in brief, that while in the first stage the awarding of the title was decided by a small group of EU countries, subsequently the choice is up to the individual countries after a competition among cities and based on the suggestions of an evaluation panel. Six years before the title year the selected host Member States publish a call for applications, usually through their Ministry for Culture. Cities interested in participating in the competition must submit a proposal for consideration.

The submitted applications are reviewed against a set of established criteria at the end of a pre-selection phase by a panel of independent experts in the field of culture or culture-based city development. The panel agrees on a short-list of cities, which are then asked to submit more detailed applications. The panel then reconvenes to assess the final applications and recommends one city per host country for the title. The relevant authority in the Member State concerned then formally designates the recommended city as European Capital of Culture. The role of the European Commission is to ensure that the rules established at EU level are respected all along the way.

Moreover, cities in EU candidate countries, potential candidates or members of the European Free Trade Association party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area (so-called EFTA/EEA countries) can also hold the title in 2022, 2024, 2028, 2030 and 2033. These cities are selected through an 'open competition', meaning that cities from various countries may compete with each other. The selection procedure is similar to the one in Member States, but the Commission is the authority publishing the call and validating the panel’s recommendations.  European Capitals of Culture are formally designated four years before the actual title year. This long period of time is necessary for the planning and preparation of such a complex event.

It is also the time needed to embed the event in a longer-term cultural strategy, to significantly engage with the citizens, to make the necessary European connections and to ensure the right infrastructure is in place.  The panel, under the auspices of the European Commission, has a continuing role during these four years in supporting European Capitals of Culture with advice and guidance and taking stock of their preparations. At the end of this monitoring period, the panel will consider whether to recommend or not that the European Commission pays the Melina Mercouri Prize (currently €1.5m funded from the EU Creative Europe programme). Each year the European Commission publishes an evaluation report on the outcomes of the European Capitals of Culture of the previous year. For the Capitals post 2019, the cities themselves will carry out their own evaluation and send it to the Commission by the end of the year following that of the title.

Other info here.