What is ECOC?
In the City of Ljubljana, we see our candidacy for the title of European Capital of Culture 2025 as an opportunity to realize certain strategic goals regarding the development of the city and its region. Supported by 25 municipalities of the Ljubljana Urban Region, we thus embark on the path to the title of European Capital of Culture 2025.
Initiative of the European Union
European Capital of Culture (ECOC) is the principal European initiative in the field of culture that allows annually selected European cities to present their cultural heritage and everything they have to offer in terms of culture to the broader European audience.
ECOC is both a local and, more importantly, national project that turns to culture to respond to challenges we are likely to face in various areas of life – from tourism, education, healthcare, social cohesion, cultural and creative industries to environmentalism, etc.
Goals of ECOC
The central goals of the ECOC programme are:
- To affirm the wealth and diversity of European cultures and our common cultural heritage
- To foster intercultural dialogue
- To improve mutual understanding between citizens of different European countries
Why Ljubljana?
Because we can and want to change things in the field of culture: at home, as well as internationally. Our ambition is to become one of the most recognizable as well as unique European cultural centres. In its strategic documents, the City of Ljubljana has already defined culture as the fourth pillar of community development.
A city that allocates over 11% of its budget to making quality culture accessible to as many people as possible and implements measures to ensure optimal conditions for the operation of both public cultural institutions and non-governmental organizations simply must run for the title of European Capital of Culture.
Ljubljana can give Slovenia a successful ECOC 2025 project
If one looks at cultural institutions and the wealth of cultural options offered by a broad spectrum of public and non-governmental organizations and individuals, it is clear that Ljubljana is a city in great cultural shape. It is, however, also a city facing great cultural challenges.
The time is right for Ljubljana to leverage the ECOC project to lay the foundations of and implement a vision for the future development of culture based on the legacy of being UNESCO’s City of Literature and a European Green Capital.
Every city embarks on such a candidacy by reflecting on changes that could be implemented locally, on possible developments within the country as well as internationally. The candidacy process has elevated our work in the field of culture and opened Ljubljana towards the surrounding region.
Procedure for the selection of the city to be awarded the ECoC 2025 title
February 22, 2019
The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia issues a call for candidate cities for ECoC 2025.
December 31, 2019
Deadline for the submission of applications. The Ministry is responsible for the organization and management of the competition, while an international expert council will handle the implementation of the selection procedure.
February 2020
The panel publishes a shortlist of candidate cities.
December 2020
One of the cities is selected to become the European Capital of Culture 2025.
2025
The EU has determined in advance the sequence of countries eligible to host the ECoC from 2020 to 2033. The selected Slovenian city will share its title with one of the following German candidate cities: Magdeburg, Nuremberg, Dresden, Chemnitz, Hildesheim, Hannover, Gera or Zittau.
