European Capitals of Culture in Eastern and Central Europe

Abstract

European Capital of Culture project is an excellent and successful cultural initiative of the European Union. This program was realized in nine cities in Central and Eastern Europe as a grandiose event in two decades after the Millennium. In these cities, the project brought renewal, reputation and cultural recovery. The first ECoC was Sibiu in Central and Eastern Europe, in 2007. This was followed by Vilnius in 2009, in the next years ECoCs were Pécs, Tallinn Maribor, Kosice, Riga, Plzen and Wroclaw. It is an exciting question what kind of impacts were generated by the program in these cities, what kind of benefits were arisen of the realized project and did this ECoC initiative contribute (if yes, how) to the development of cities. It is important to know that the project requires significant sources, which lay the responsibility on to be able to produce long term results in the development of cities. This study deals with the ECoC projects of the nine Central and Eastern European cities, analyzing the cultural visions of cities, the concrete outcomes of the projects and compering the budgets of the programs and the numbers of visitors in these cities in the year of the given projects. This last indicator is seen as a highlighted success factor of the ECoC project since it expresses to what extent European citizens who are sensible to culture could have been reach. It was interesting to see that the examined cities generated different number of visitors based on different budgets. This analysis resulted differences concerning effectiveness. From this aspect Tallinn is the most successful city as it attracted the most visitors in proportion to its budget. However, we think regarding the evaluation of effectiveness that the initiative will never be unsuccessful in any cities since the smallest effort for culture should be highly appreciated. These efforts can be recognized in cities that different urban revitalization developments and investments were implemented in every cities during the projects, moreover several cultural programs were organized in the ECoC program years. The aim of the analysis is to collect experiences for the future ECoC tenures concerning the project. It will explore the urban development elements resulted by the program, the problems, which arise in the implementation phase of the program and give guideline related to the optimal structure and volume of the initiative’s budget.