Venice – bid to become European Capital of Culture 2019

Venice is to become European Capital of Culture in 2019. The plan has been gathering dust in the organizers’ drawers for several years, and even in June there was no significant news from the municipality of Bolzano. Today, however, the press office announced that a working group had been formed to submit Venice’s bid to become European Capital of Culture.

The working group, however, covers a wide-ranging region. Perhaps the Ruhr region in Germany, which was named European Capital of Culture in 2010, provided an incentive to bring other regions in northeastern Italy, such as Friuli Venezia Giulia, into the bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2019. Today, the Italian provincial councillor for culture met with Christian Tommasini, the mayor of Venice, representatives of the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions, and the cultural department of Trentino. The Venice–European Capital of Culture 2019 working group agrees that the bid should be supported as soon as possible with sound arguments that will make it possible to evaluate. To this end, they have set themselves a tight schedule with many meetings. “A cultural bridge from South Tyrol to Venice, and through transparency onward to Europe”—that is roughly how the project is meant to take shape, enough to support a bid. The Venice–European Capital of Culture 2019 working group will meet for the first time as early as next Monday.

The aim is to seize the many unique opportunities that can be explained by the culture, countries, customs and traditions of the communities involved. Bolzano and Udine, like the leading city of Venice, therefore believe they are well placed to further enhance their profile. As recently as this summer, Bolzano saw itself as having no chance against Venice. Now, thanks to the working group, these two cities are not the only ones at the heart of culture in northeastern Italy. We can only hope that the Venice–European Capital of Culture 2019 working group’s bid will prove worthwhile and be accepted.