The 19th Annual Meeting of the Hungarian Political Science Association

May 30-June 1, 2013, Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár)

Can EU monitoring improve the governance of the European Capitals of Culture?

Ágnes Simon University of Pécs

The European Capitals of Culture initiative• Despite the fact that culture production

belongs to the competence of the individual member states, the idea of regional regeneration through culture is still decided in the EU agenda.

• The European Capitals of Culture were created on the initiative of Mrs Melina Mercouri in 1985 as an intergovernmental initiative, and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2010.

The European Capitals of Culture initiative• Since 1985 the event has grown in popularity, and is now

well known to European citizens.• One of the most successful EU cultural programmes,

attracting increasing interest from policy makers, academics and the media every year.

• The ECoC programme is one of the main tools for the winner cities and regions to realize long-term and sustainable development.

• The best results have been achieved by cities which were able to integrate the fruits of the cultural year into their long-term culture-based development strategies.

Multi-level governance in ECOCs - ideally

- Bottom up approach (local initiation, programming)

- National nomination and enabling

- European (formal decision) and monitoring

Governance in ECOCs

• The monitoring system by the European Commission has undergone permanent changes and improved evaluations over the years

more and more severe criteria:– to stimulate cities to employ more efficient planning – to attain more significant results by paying particular

attention to their governance and management structures.

• The cultural capitals should dispose of appropriate governance structures. Failures of cultural capitals are often due to inadequate governing structures derailed by political interferences and dominance.

Monitoring and governance

• The ECoCs 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,

– 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 of 25 May 1999 establishing a Community action for the European Capital of Culture event for the years 2005 to 2019

Transformation in 1999

Following recommendations from stakeholders, the scheme of designating the European Capitals of Culture was modified in 2006.

The rules were renewed in order to: • develop the effectiveness of the initiative further by stimulating

competition between the cities to foster the quality of the bids;

• to have a designation more transparent and more European.

Marseille and Košice (2013) were the first ECOCs to be selected under the new jury selection system.

* Decision N° 1622/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 2006 establishing a Community action for the European Capital

of Culture event for the years 2007 to 2019.

New rules in 2006*

The EU commissioned an evaluation of the monitoring procedures as well applied for the first time for the 2010 titles.

Changes:

• Various measures were introduced to accompany the cities in their preparation, including a monitoring process.

• The 2010 European Capitals of Culture and the following ones had/have to be submitted to a monitoring phase between the designation and the beginning of the event.

New rules in 2006

• The monitoring was carried out under the responsibility of 7 members designated by the European Institutions: monitoring and advisory panel.

• The panel had to be convened on two occasions between the designation and the beginning of the event to give advice on, and to take stock of the preparations for the event with a view to helping cities to develop a high-quality programme with a strong European dimension.

New rules in 2006

• The Decision 1622/2006/EC introduced also new funding mechanism: Melina Mercouri Prize – conditional prize of 1,5 M Euro.

• The prize is monetary and should be awarded in full at the latest three months before the start of the relevant year.

• The Prize is awarded by the Commission to the ECOCs on the basis of the second report issued by the monitoring and advisory panel provided that:

– they meet the criteria of the action;

– and have implemented the recommendations made by the selection as well as the monitoring and advisory panels.

The Melina Mercouri Prize

The prize is awarded only if the ECOC is delivered more or less as planned in the application with no major changes in:

- the budget- artistic independence- European dimension- communication- monitoring and evaluation.

The Melina Mercouri Prize

The two monitoring meetings took place in 2007 and 2009.The panel had to :

• take stock of the preparations for the event and assess the progress achieved so far in the preparation phase;

• provide the cities with support and guidance to help them in their preparation.

It was important that the ECOC comply with its commitments done at selection stage (particularly regarding the European dimension) and take into consideration the panel's recommendations mentioned in the selection report.

The monitoring of 2010 ECOCs

Where is Pécs?

• The Monitoring Panel noted that ‘there had been several departures from key positions since the appointment of Pécs (as ECOC), and expressed their concern that all was well with the management structure.’

• Lack of clarity concerning the conceptual, long-term focus.

• Sustainability focus on content and international cultural developments were needed .

• A balanced approach is needed where the content of projects and the involvement of cultural organisations and the community in general is concerned.

The monitoring of Pécs2010

• Energizing the community and organisations was just as essential as infrastructural measures public involvement in developing the infrastructure is important in view of the future use of the infrastructure and as a build up to 2010 and following years.

• Pécs' communication strategy needed to be sketched in more detail.

• The clarity concerning public authorities` commitment for the project and the funding of cultural organisations after 2010 is crucial.

The monitoring of Pécs2010

Palmer Report 2009‘Since there can be no sanctions against a ECOC that is

not fulfilling the obligations and commitments made when the title is conferred on it, the gentle warnings or concerns expressed by the European Commission and its Monitoring Panel may have limited positive impact. It may be that the recurrent problems in certain selected ECOC will undermine the credibility of the designation in the years to come.’

The monitoring of Pécs

.

By introducing a new legal base* the Commission hopes to tackle a number of weaknesses at an operational level including:

- the selection of the best possible ECOCs respecting a fair territorial balance;

- between the bidding and final stages; stability of the budget

- improve the funding mechanism;

*2012/0199 (COD) 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

ECOCs – 2020-2033

- ensure the balance between cultural objectives and regeneration priorities;

- foster the artistic independence of implementic teams;

- foster the legacy of the event;- improve the evaluation of the impact of the title;- ensure the long-term quality and credibility of the

title and thus its brand value.

ECOCs – 2020-2033

Headings of the new selection criteria:

- long-term strategy;

- capacity to deliver;- cultural and artistic content;- European dimension;- management.

ECOCs – 2020-2033

Most significant changes in requirements:

- governance structure;

- long-term strategy for cultural development:

- cultural, social and economic sustainability;

- trans-sectoral comprehensive planning (relationship between culture and other aspects of the city).

ECOCs – 2020-2033

Specific requirements:

- Need for ‘cross-party’ political support for the bid

in order to reduce the problems experienced in some cities with political conflicts around the ECOC;

to reduce the number of applicant cities.

Overall the Commission desire to have greater control over the ECOC process and the quality of the programme.

ECOCs – 2020-2033

Proposed improvements:- more explicit selection criteria;- reinforced conditionality of the Melina Mercouri Prize;- no obligation for the Panel to award the title if there

are no satisfactory bids; - more monitoring and exchange of experience

between the ECOC cities;- more evaluation obligations;- re-introduction of the participation of third countries.

The Commission will convene the European panel and the concerned cities to three meetings: – the first meeting will take place three years before the

beginning of the year of the title; – the second meeting will take place eighteen months

before the beginning of the year of the title ;– the third meeting shall take place two months before

the beginning of the year of the title.

• BUT: it is not really realistic to expect cities to deliver programmes planned almost a decade in advance of the event in more or less the same way.

Monitoring plans – 2020-2033

• Visits to the cities by panel members will be more systematic;

• The cities shall issue progress reports to the Commission six weeks before each of the meetings;

• The panel shall pay special attention to the recommendations laid down in the selection report and in the preceding monitoring reports.

Monitoring plans – 2020-2033

ECOC typically bring important shifts in the governance of culture:

• new ways of working, • new partnerships, • new strategies, • new set of relationships between local municipalities

and cultural operators.

Establishing governance arrangements

• The end of the title year typically leads to the disbanding of the dedicated delivery agencies and inevitably to some loss of the experience that has been built up.

• Where high profile international operators have been brought into lead elements of the cultural programme, they tend to leave the city in the months following the title-year.

• The disbanding of the agency creates a vacuum in the cultural governance of the city. The challenge is often to put in place new arrangements to fill this vacuum and allow the benefits of the title-year to endure.

Establishing governance arrangements

Proposal• Continued partnership forum or mechanism of some

form in the city.

• Since the level of cultural activity and funding will generally be lower in the years immediately following the title-year, the focus of such a body usually needs to be different to that of the ECoC delivery agency.

Establishing governance arrangements

• Liverpool 2008, Stavanger 2008 and Linz 2009:at least one of the key individuals from the culture department of the municipality remained involved from the application to the completion of the title-year and went on to play a key role in the legacy arrangements.

• In Pécs the legacy bodies are dedicated to sustaining the new facilities developed in the context of the title-year, rather than continuing a cross-city cultural programme.

Establishing governance arrangements

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!