In 2026, the European Capitals of Culture will be Trencin, Slovakia, and Oulu, Finland. But how are the two cities preparing? This focus is on Trencin, which, in addition to supporting the organisation of cultural events, is placing great emphasis on the training of cultural workers from the region or from the city itself. These are very important actions for a European Capital of Culture because training serves not only to raise citizens' skills, but also to strengthen connections between different skills and experiences.

In the past days Culture Minister Asta Vrečko and Nova Gorica Mayor Samo Turel signed an agreement under which an additional EUR 3 million will be allocated to the institute running the Slovenian part of the 2025 European Capital of Culture project, which will be hosted jointly by Nova Gorica and Italy's Gorizia.

As part of the project "A thousand years of history at the center of Europe: Borgo Castello crossroads of people and cultures" (funded by the PNRR - Next Generation EU), Netural Coop Impresa Sociale launches a call for free residencies for social innovators from Europe and beyond.

In 2030 there will be three countries to designate the European Capital of Culture: Cyprus, Belgium and one of the candidate countries to join the European Union. For EcocNews, it would be fair for the third country to be Ukraine, and for this reason we have launched a public petition. Meanwhile, some candidate cities are already emerging for Cyprus and for Belgium.