Valmiera, Liepaja and Daugavpils compete for European Capital of Culture title

Three cities continue competing in the finals of the European Capital of Culture contest. Daugavpils, Liepaja and Valmiera submitted their candidacies for the title of the best known European cultural initiative of 2027 within the submission term – by 4 April, according to Ministry of Culture.
Daugavpils, Liepaja and Valmiera’s applications will be reviewed by ten international and two national committee members based on the following criteria: investments in long-term strategy, European dimension, cultural and art content, implementation ability, community involvement and management. At the beginning of May members of the committee will visit cities. On 9th and 10th May they will evaluate presentations from cities to determine the winner.
The European Capital of Culture was founded in Greece 1985, thanks to the idea of then the country’s Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri.
The initiative has two goals – protecting and promoting cultural diversity in Europe and emphasizing their shared qualities by promoting residents’ sense of belonging to the cultural space and promoting the contribution of culture to long-term development of cities in accordance to their strategies and priorities.
«The status of European Capital of Culture will allow us to position Latvian cities and our country within Europe’s culture space; this status can give a positive impulse to restart a city’s culture strategy and contribute to entrepreneurship, tourism, economics and social life,» says state secretary to Latvian Ministry of Culture Dace Vilsone.
She also notes that this much is affirmed by Riga’s experience in 2014, when the city won this title for Latvia.
«We can see Riga continues living in the culture space and developing the initiatives commenced seven years ago. We can also see this bringing an important change of culture policy’s paradigm in the city.»
As previously reported, nine cities in Latvia had submitted their candidacy for the European Capital of Culture 2027 title at the start of the contest. These include Cēsis, Daugavpils, Jelgava, Jekabpils, Jurmala, Kuldiga, Liepaja, Ogre and Valmiera. After three days of online presentations in July 2021 the international group of experts picked Daugavpils, Jurmala, Liepaja and Valmiera for the second stage. Jurmala pulled out in autumn 2021.
The title of European Capital of Culture is handed to no more than one city from two EU member states every year based on a specific calendar sequence. According to this calendar, in 2027 the title will be given to two member states – Latvia and Portugal.