European capital of culture: Community action, years 2005 to 2019

In its amended proposal the Commission has incorporated 8 of the 14 amendments adopted by Parliament on first reading, relating essentially to the organization of the 'European City of Culture' event and the selection of applications. The Commission incorporated the amendments relating to: - the members of the selection panel responsible for designating the European City of Culture: the selection panel shall meet each year; it shall be composed of seven leading independent figures from the cultural sector; membership of the selection panel shall be incompatible with the exercise of any public elective office; - responsibility for the cultural project: where a project involves several cities the proposing city shall lead the project throughout; - selection criteria: it must be specified how the project will support and develop creative work, ensure the widest possible participation of large sections of the population and continue the impact of the action beyond the year of the festivities, encourage wide dissemination of the various events by means of an appropriate Internet site and measures to promote mutual understanding and optimise the historic heritage of the city concerned. However, the Commission was unable to adopt certain amendments which were regarded as essential by the European Parliament concerning the following: - codecision procedure for designating cities, since the Commission considered that it was too cumbersome and undermined the smooth functioning of the programme; - the participation of certain third countries: the initiative must be open to eastern European third countries as provided for in the Association Agreements with these countries and not restricted to the 15 Member States of the European Union as Parliament wishes; - at the ending of the European Cultural Month: unlike Parliament, the Commission is not in favour of maintaining this initiative because of its limited duration and hence its lack of impact - and because of the opening of the 'city' initiative to EEA and CEEC third countries; - the total finance for the initiative: the Commission disagrees with Parliament's proposal for an annual budget of ECU 2 m for the project which is for funding for this initiative to be included in the 'culture' framework programme (COD98169).�