The European Parliament agreed on the European Commission's proposal to postpone the holding of the title of European Capital of Culture for Timișoara to 2023.
The changes regarding the implementation of the European Capitals of Culture programmes occurred as a result of the outbreak of the new coronavirus pandemic and the imposed sanitary conditions, which prevent the unfolding of cultural and artistic events, but also the movement of people, under the conditions initially provided in the cultural programmes of these cities.
Future European Capitals of Culture will be moved up as follows: Novi Sad (Serbia) from 2021 to 2022, Timișoara and Elefsina (Greece) from 2021 to 2023, while the two cities designated European Capitals of Culture for 2020 - Rijeka and Galway – will continue implementing their programmes until April 2021.
"The European Parliament Commission on Culture and Education (CULT) endorsed the European Commission’s proposal to postpone Timișoara’s taking over the title of European Capital of Culture to 2023. The city will have two more years to implement a recalibrated version of its programme, and it will share the year of the Capital of Culture - 2023 - with Elefsina (Greece) and Veszprém (Hungary)", said Simona Neumann, executive director of the Association Timișoara European Capital of Culture.
In this regard, the representatives of the Association Timișoara European Capital of Culture had, on October 29, a first virtual working meeting with the partners implementing the cultural programmes included in the Bid Book that brought Timișoara the title of European Capital of Culture in 2016. The purpose of this first meeting was to take stock of the state of play on the project, and to present the principles and the way of working for the recalibration of the Cultural Programme towards 2023.
Thus, starting with November, there will be individual meetings with the host partners referred to in the Bid Book, but also with the cultural operators who have successfully implemented projects following the open call for projects Searchlight, organized by the Association in 2019.
The recalibration process will continue in the first part of next year when a new call for projects will be organized to strengthen the Cultural Programme. Through this call, the Association aims to attract, on a competitive basis, new project ideas, both from cultural operators in Timișoara, and from national and international ones. The recalibrated Cultural Programme is expected to be released between May and June 2021.
