Yesterday the Culture and Education Committee decided to give the go ahead for a report on a European Heritage Label – a version of the European Capital of Culture for historic sites.
The proposal is for a pan-European scheme to reward sites of special European significance with a European Heritage Label. The sites, chosen by EU member states, would symbolise European history and ideals. Participation would be voluntary, though obviously we would hope that all the countries of the EU would take part.
Each country would be able to nominate two sites a year for the Label and a panel would then chose one from each member state for the award itself. This means, assuming all EU countries were in the scheme, there would be 27 European Heritage Label sites per year.
The idea is for those running and involved in the sites to get together, and for the European Heritage Label to base itself on the very successful European Capital of Culture scheme, now in its 25th year.
Seventeen EU countries already have a version of what is now being proposed at EU level, so this proposal will build on what already exists rather than re-inventing the wheel. Most of the costs would be borne by individual EU countries with the EU centrally only carrying out basic administrative tasks. EU staff would be redeployed to carry out this work; there are no plans for increasing expenditure.
As a Londoner, I see the Heritage Label as a kind of European Blue Plaque with the added value of European networking for those people and organisations who take part. It’s an excellent idea, the kind of thing which gives a boost to sites of special interest and adds a bit of life and colour to the areas concerned. It should also encourage tourism and therefore have economic as well as cultural value.
Mary,
What on earth do we want a rather naff blue square when we already have our own blue plaque scheme?
As an island I’m not clear what European significance any of our sites would have anyway.
The money would be better spent on the sites themselves rather than on a label.
PS your list of Euro blogs is mostly out of date.
regards
geoff
Geoff, Thanks for the info re my Euro blogs – I will look at the list and revise as necessary. I think the European Heritage Label is basically a good idea and will be voluntary for member states. If used well, it will, I’m sure, help tourism and therefore bring in money.
It seems to me just another attempt by the EU to publicise itself and to associate itself with success. It is rather like those misleading signs we see saying, ‘This project is part-funded by the EU’. The projects being of course, funded from money sent by UK taxpayers in the first place. The taxpayers who send £2.80 to Brussels just to get £1 back.
Associating the EU with the Acropolis is a bit far fetched. I don’t know very much about the people who built it but I am guessing that they were not the sort of people who would take 15 years to decide what chocolate is and that they would not be impressed, other than by the size, with the federal buildings in Brussels.
Perhaps visitors to the EU buildings in the centuries to come will see a beauty in them which is not currently apparent and will marvel at the ‘Glory that was Brussels’, as tour guides show them round – and here Ladies and Gentlemen is Ye Olde EU Library where can sometimes be seem the ghost of Lady Caroline de Flint reading and re-reading the EU Constitution which she so fatally failed to bother with when in office, etc.