Ana Zlibut, first vice president , The Writers` League Timisoara Banat Branch, Romania
Abstract: On 29 September 2017, at Timisoara, in Romania took place the international conference “Culture unites the community”, organized by the SEDEC Commission (Commission for Social Policy, Education, Employment, Research and Culture), together with the Timisoara City Hall, the Timis County Council and the Town Hall of Dudestii Noi, at the initiative of Alin-Adrian Nica, first vice-chair of the SEDEC commission, Mayor of Dudestii Noi, Romania.
At the conference participated the Mayor of Timişoara, Mr Nicolae Robu, MEP Mircea Diaconu, Vice-Chair of the CULT Committee, Mrs Eva Georgeta Andreas, Prefect of Timis County and Mr Calin-Ionel Dobra, the President of Timis County Council, together with more than 100 elected representatives of EU cities and regions and representatives of national authorities, the European Commission, agencies, artists, universities and the private sector.
The initiator of this event, Alin Nica said that culture can be today, a driver of sustainable economic growth, but also a means of ensuring social cohesion.
The conference had two interactive panels:” Cultural heritage-a language to translate our past into our common future” and “Culture as a driver for territorial development”.
The panelists at the interactive panel 1 were:
- Apostolos Tzitzikostas, CoR Rapporteur for the Opinion “Towards an EU strategy for international cultural relations”, Governor of Central Macedonia, Greece
- Mircea Diaconu, MEP, Vice-Chair of the CULT Committee, European Parliament
- Michel Magnier, Director for Culture and Creativity, Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (DG EAC), European Commission-Making 2018 the European Year of Cultural Heritage
- Stefan Balici, Manager of the National Institute of Heritage, Romania
The panelists at the interactive panel 2 were:
- Simona Neumann, Executive Director “Timisoara-European Capital of Culture” Association- “Shine your light/ Light up your city” project
- Daniela Laudehr, World Heritage Coordination, City of Regensburg- “Communities at the heart of heritage governance”COMUS project
- Joe Short, President of Associazione Kora-Community and cultural heritage: European Solidarity Corps (ESC) volunteers in post-earthquake recovery
- Stephan Hoffmann, Policy Advisor, Department of Culture and Tourism at the City of Dresden-“How to address populism and social cohesion through culture”
Cultural heritage was the key point of the debates at the international conference. In fact, 2018 will be the European Year of Cultural Heritage. MEP Mircea Diaconu has talked extensively about the cultural heritage and how it can bring economic growth, not just image, in Timisoara, but also across the country.The debates prepared the ground for a successful European Year of Cultural Heritage in 2018.
The initiator of the International Conference “Culture unites the community”, Alin Nica said that “following the conference, we hope to get a better promotion of the Timisoara project at European level, a greater involvement of the national authorities in the projects that Timisoara has for the year 2021 and last but not least, the realization of local and regional cohesion among decision-makers to make “Timisoara – European Capital of Culture in 2021” a success”.
