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

In its opinion on the Council common position on the European capital of culture, the Commission regrets entirely the text adopted unanimously by the Council. It feels that this common position significantly changes its own proposal, even if the fundamental objective of the proposal, namely the realisation of a large-scale European action, and its visibility remain the same. Nonetheless, the Commission considers that the compromise arrived at does not contribute to strengthening the European and cultural character of the event. It underlines this in particular by means of a declaration it made at the time of the text?s adoption by the Council, in which it announced that it would reserve the right to subsequently take any initiative which would ensure the European and cultural character of this event. Stressing that the common position is only a step in the legislative process, the Commission hopes that, during the co-decision process, an agreement may be reached between the institutions with a view to making this action part of a Community framework. Finally, the Commission warns the European Parliament against re-presenting its amendments, which it considers to have already been quasi-rejected.�