Activites

• 2013/12/12 Vote in plenary scheduled
• 2013/06/19 Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/single reading
  • A7-0226/2013 summary

    The Committee on Culture and Education unanimously adopted the report by Marco SCURRIA (EPP, IT) on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Union action for the European Capitals of Culture for the years 2020 to 2033. The parliamentary committee recommended that the European Parliament’s position adopted at first reading under the ordinary legislative procedure should amend the Commission’s proposal as follows: European dimension: Members stressed that this initiative should have a strong European dimension focused on the use of the Union's policies and programmes and based on current European themes and European issues with broad social impact. Among the objectives for this initiative highlighted by Members were: promoting a European cultural identity; strengthening intercultural dialogue; strengthening the capacity of the cultural sector and its links with regional and local authorities and with other sectors, such as those concerned with education, scientific research, the environment, creative industries, urban renewal and cultural tourism, etc; boosting the involvement of residents and include excluded groups. Selection criteria: Members considered that the selection criteria should be made more explicit and more measurable in order to help the panel of experts in the selection and monitoring of cities. The criteria should in particular reinforce the legacy of the title by rewarding cities which have developed a long-term cultural policy strategy, which can generate sustainable effects in terms of economic and social growth. Every European Cultural Capital application should: aim at securing the widest possible involvement of residents, not least the most vulnerable; promote social inclusion and equal opportunities; involve young people to help them to become more self-reliant and with a special emphasis on volunteering; provide for links with other European Capitals of Culture; promote the involvement and commitment of civil society. Broad political and financial support: Members stipulated that the European Cultural Capital project should benefit from broad cross-party political support and a sustainable financial commitment from the local, regional and national authorities. Involvement of surrounding areas: candidate-cities can be of any size and may involve their surrounding areas, including those in countries adjacent to them, in cooperation with local and regional authorities. Panel: the European panel should consist of 10 members selected following the organisation of an open call for expressions of interest. Members should also be able to devote sufficient time to the European panel. Each of the Member States concerned may nominate two consultative members to the panel. After organising a call for expressions of interest, the Commission should propose a pool of all potential panel members who expressed their interest and who are deemed to meet the qualification criteria. The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission should subsequently select three experts each, and the Committee of the Regions one expert, from that pool and appoint them in accordance with their respective procedures. Call for applications: Members stipulated that Member States should publish a call for submission of applications at least six years before the beginning of the year of the title. Mercouri Prize: Members institutionalised the Mercouri Prize whereby the Commission may, within the framework of the respective Union programmes supporting culture, award this prize to the designated cities. Use of European financial support: Members stipulated that the Commission should encourage candidate cities to make full use of other potential sources of financial support from the Union, such as the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund. Network of European Cultural Capitals: Members encouraged the exchange of experience and of best practices between past, present and future Capitals, as well as candidate cities, inter alia using already established formal and informal networks of the Capitals. International visibility of the initiative: Members stressed the visibility of this initiative and called for it to receive improved promotion on a worldwide scale. 25th anniversary of the European Cultural Capital: lastly, Members call on the Commission to update the touring exhibition created in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the European Capitals of Culture action and support its participation in each new European Capital of Culture.

• 2013/05/28 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
• 2013/04/22 Amendments tabled in committee
  • PE510.506
• 2013/02/28 Committee draft report
  • PE500.756
• 2012/11/30 Committee of the Regions: opinion
  • CDR2077/2012
• #3201
• 2012/11/26 Council Meeting
  • 3201
• 2012/09/11 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 2012/07/20 Legislative proposal
  • COM(2012)0407 summary

    PURPOSE: to establish a new Union action for the European Capitals of Culture for the years 2020 to 2033. PROPOSED ACT: Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council. BACKGROUND: the European Capitals of Culture were created in 1985 as an intergovernmental initiative. They were transformed officially into a European Union action in 1999 in order to make the initiative more effective. New criteria and selection procedures were established, a chronological list of Member States was drawn up indicating the order in which they were entitled to host the title, and a European panel of independent experts was created to assess the applications (Decision N° 1419/1999/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council). The rules were renewed in 2006 in order to develop the effectiveness of the initiative further by stimulating competition between the cities and fostering the quality of the bids. These new rules also introduced various measures to accompany the cities in their preparation, including a monitoring process (Decision N° 1622/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council. Decision N° 1622/2006/EC will end in 2019. The competition for the title is currently launched six years in advance in order to give the cities sufficient time for their preparation before the beginning of the year of the title. Therefore, the new legal base for the continuation of the European Capitals of Culture should be adopted in 2013 in order to ensure a smooth transition in 2020. IMPACT ASSESSMENT: on the basis of the results of the evaluations and of the public consultation, three options were examined for the future of the European Capitals of Culture after 2019: continuing the action with an identical legal base to the current Decision to which simply a new chronological list of Member States is annexed; stopping the action; continuing the action with a new legal base which addresses the problems encountered with the current Decision. For this third option, two sub-options were examined: a new chronological list of Member States is annexed; the title is awarded on the basis of an open competition. The various cultural, economic, social and environmental impacts were examined for each option. The options were then assessed and ranked according to their effectiveness in terms of achieving the objectives of the European Capitals of Culture, their efficiency, their costs and administrative burden, their coherence with broader Union political objectives and their synergies and complementarities with other Union objectives, and their feasibility. The option with the most positive overall assessment is option 3a, namely a new legal base with a chronological list of Member States. This option scored higher than all other options and was ranked as the preferred option. LEGAL BASIS: Article 167 (5), first indent of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). CONTENT: the aim of this proposed Decision is to establish a Union action for the European Capitals of Culture for the years 2020 to 2033. The general objectives of the action shall be the following: to safeguard and promote the diversity of European cultures, and to highlight the common features they share; to foster the contribution of culture to the long-term development of cities. Moreover: the title will continue to be awarded on the basis of a chronological list of Member States: such a rotating system proved to be the only system which ensured an equal opportunity for each Member State to host the title and a geographical balance in the location of the European Capitals of Culture, and hence the opportunity for the Union to highlight the diversity of European cultures and for the public across Europe to experience the event close to home; the title will continue to be reserved to cities: cities will also continue to have the possibility to involve their surrounding region in order to reach a wider public and amplify the impacts, however past experience has shown that the clear leadership of one city is a key success factor; the attribution of the title will continue to be based on a cultural programme created specifically for the year of the title in order to foster a strong European dimension; the two stage selection process carried out by a European panel of independent experts has proven to be fair and transparent and will be kept. It enabled in particular cities to improve their applications between the pre-selection and the final selection phase on the basis of expert advice received from the panel; the title will continue to be awarded for a full year to keep it distinctive and ambitious. Amendments and proposed improvements: at the same time, a number of improvements are proposed in order to address the problems encountered with the current Decision and to help all cities to make the most of the title. The main changes introduced by the new legal base are the following: (1) The criteria have been made more explicit in order to give more guidance to the candidate cities and more measurable in order to help the panel of experts in the selection and monitoring of cities. Special attention was paid to optimise the potential leverage effect of the initiative on stimulating long-term local culture led development strategies, to ensure the capacity of candidate cities to actually host the title, to boost the European dimension and visibility of the cultural programmes, to ensure the high quality of the cultural and artistic content, to foster a large participation of the local populations and to try to ensure the stability of the budgets and the independence of the artistic teams. The criteria for the assessment of the applications are divided into six categories: "long-term strategy", "capacity to deliver", "cultural and artistic content", "European dimension", "outreach" and "management": (2) The conditionality of the Melina Mercouri Prize has been reinforced. Furthermore, the Prize will no longer be paid three months before the beginning of the year of the title, but during the middle of the year itself in order to be certain that cities keep to their commitments regarding in particular funding, programming and Union visibility. (3) European Panel. It is stated explicitly that the European panel is not obliged to give a positive recommendation if none of the bids fulfils the criteria. (4) The accompanying measures which support the cities during the preparation period after winning the title have been strengthened in order to provide further support and guidance to the cities. An additional monitoring meeting has been introduced, visits to the cities by panel members will be more systematic and the exchange of experience and best practices between past, present and future Capitals, as well as candidate cities will be reinforced. (5) New evaluation obligations were introduced for the cities themselves in order to have a more comprehensive view of the impacts of the title and to provide comparable data. (6) Finally, it is proposed to open the action again to the participation of candidate and potential candidate countries after 2019, as was the case until 2010. The experience among others of Sibiu 2007 and Istanbul 2010 has shown that this can be beneficial both for these countries and the Union. It should be noted that cities in candidate and potential candidate countries shall also have the possibility to apply for the European Capital of Culture title in the framework of an open competition organised every third year in parallel with the competitions in the two Member States, in accordance with the calendar in the annex. Designation: the Commission shall, by means of implementing acts, officially designate the European Capitals of Culture, having due regard to the recommendations of the European  Panel. The Commission shall inform the European Parliament, the Council and the Committee of the Regions of its designation. BUDGETARY IMPLICATION: the Commission's proposal has no direct budgetary implication. The period covered by the proposal will coincide with several multi annual financial frameworks. For the 2014-2020 financial framework, the financial aspects in relation to the European Capitals of Culture, including the Melina Mercouri Prize, the costs of the European panel of experts, the visibility of the action at European level and the human resources needed within the Commission to support the action, will be dealt with in the framework of the Creative Europe Programme. For the years after 2020, the legal and financial aspects of the European Capitals of Culture will be directly linked to the provisions included in the future multi annual financial frameworks, and on this basis, they should also be dealt with in the framework of the respective Union programmes supporting culture.

  • SWD(2012)0226 summary

    The current legal base for the European Capitals of Culture (ECoC) (Decision 1622/2006/EC) includes a chronological list of Member States indicating the order in which they are entitled to host the event until 2019. The preparation time involved for preparing each ECoC (currently 6 years) and the time needed for the ordinary legislative procedure means that the Commission's proposal for a continuation of the ECoC should be adopted in 2012 in order to ensure a smooth transition in 2020. The present Commission Services Working Document summarises the main results of DG EAC's reflection on the future of the ECoC. The document offers in particular the results of an external evaluation of the initiative, a public consultation on the effectiveness and impact of the initiative. It also outlines the main problems arising from the implementation of the ECoC. The main challenge for the ECoC action after 2019 will be twofold. On the one hand, it is important to help each city to make the most of the title and to fully use the potential of the ECoC. On the other hand, to retain the strong "brand" value which the ECoC title acquired over the years, it will be essential to ensure that the action as a whole remains credible and relevant in the long term. To this end, the following five problems encountered by cities under Decision 1622/2006/EC will need to be tackled after 2019 : 1. the lack of stability in the governance structures and in the budgets: the most common difficulty encountered by cities in their preparation phase hasbeen the effect of national and local politics on the budgets, which need to be as stable as possible between the bidding and final stages, as well as the impact of politics on other aspects of the organisation of the event. Political support is fundamental as most of the funds are public, and without it a city cannot have a credible bid, but at the same time the implementing team needs its artistic independence to be respected in order to protect the credibility of the event; 2. the limited European dimension; 3. weak legacy planning: several of the past Capitals acknowledged that in retrospect they had not done enough to forward plan for the period after the event. Others stated that they have struggled or are still struggling to fully exploit the potential legacies of the event; 4. the lack of evaluation and comparable data: it is essential that the Capitals themselves put in place measurement mechanisms. Given the lack of these measures, disparities create a very fragmented view on the impacts of the ECoC and it makes a real comparison between cities very difficult, which is harmful for the transfer of experience; 5. the limited number of credible candidates in certain MS: the current rules for the ECoC would make it politically very difficult for the panel to refuse to award the title to one city in each of the two MS concerned every year. Luckily, so far there was always at least one credible candidate in each competition, even those which did attract very few participants. However this may become a problem in the future and selecting weak candidates for the title would without any doubt risk damaging the prestige and brand value of the ECoC in the long term. The Commission document outlines proposals for each of the problem areas addressed with the aim of proposing a more targeted action plan. An impact assessment is proposed for after 2019 which will include the different options proposed as well as the one which the Commission intends to maintain in its proposal.

  • DG {'url': 'http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/', 'title': 'Education and Culture'}, VASSILIOU Androulla

Documents

• Legislative proposal published: COM(2012)0407
• Document attached to the procedure: SWD(2012)0226
• Debate in Council: 3201
• Committee of the Regions: opinion: CDR2077/2012
• Amendments tabled in committee: PE510.506
• Committee draft report: PE500.756
• Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/single reading: A7-0226/2013

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)